Identity

You have a love-hate relationship with eagles.

It’s the national animal for your home nest, also the national emblem for your chosen nest.

In the end, it’s all just a bunch of letters and feathers. If you’re lucky, some numbers, too, but let’s be honest, your A# doesn’t define what your mom used to feed you for breakfast, or the classical literature you read in your first language and later in your second language and then – yes, because you’re committed to excellence – your third language. Neither do the W— forms your spouse had to fill out to sponsor you into this country that said you should, could never be a burden and you should never break a law and you would not be allowed to sit on a jury or vote, unless – unless! – you paid X amount of $ and filled out a gazillion forms and studied for a test about something called civics –

but when you do, you question the test questions and especially what the answers have to do with what is now happening within these borders and whether along the line when you did the dishes and paid the taxes and taught your children proper English and told them not to break any laws you somehow misunderstood something about eagles all along.

Their calls, it turns out, are puny.

Shrill, really – look at me but then look away while I do something not worthy.

They may glide majestically and drop a kingly feather here or there, but they often feast on what others have gleaned and achieved and scavenge when no one is watching.

You get a crick in your neck squinting up at them and then you stumble because you forgot where your feet really belong.

To label something as royal or emblematic because it looks and hoots like an eagle – naw, you lose faith in that, and also in those random numbers and letters printed on documents that were supposed to hold your destiny in inky hands, but then really just lied about who you are and what keeps you safe in this place in which you had hoped to land.

Alina Zollfrank

Alina Zollfrank dreams trilingually in the Pacific Northwest. She believes artists and writers are humanity’s true pulse, social media might just kill our essence, and produce should be shared with neighbors. Her work has been nominated twice for the Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize, and recently appeared in SAND, Door Is A Jar, Tint, and Cholla Needles, with more forthcoming in The MacGuffin, Salt Hill, Reckon Review, and Heavy Feather Review. Alina is a grateful recipient of the 2024 Washington Artist Trust Grant and committed disability advocate.