"Ghosts don’t name numbers
But nod featureless heads
Or wave a sleeve"

“I watched her, almost feeling the rope between her feet. The wind lifted Urzigul’s costume, blew it around her until it cloaked her body, but still, the child didn’t falter. ”

A reading of a selection of "The Birds and the Wind" by Elizabeth Burton.
Image by George Lu. No changes were made to this image.

“Sometimes I can make the ending more forceful by stressing internal rhyme, but it really depends on the content of the poem. There is no magic formula, and it can take hours of head-banging. Afterwards, if I’m pleased with the result, I go through a period of elation. But it doesn’t last—the letdown is not knowing where the next poem is coming from.”