Feath, Feather, Feathest / by Chris Maynard

I saw a cartoon in the New Yorker with three different pictures of Jupiter with a caption under each, “Jupit,” “Jupiter,” “Jupitest.” Which got me to thinking about a piece entitled “Feath, Feather, Feathest.” Once in a while an aviary bird dies in mid-molt, when its feathers are still growing and the owner gives me the dead bird. This just happened with a Scarlet Macaw. Its full grown feather would have been 20 inches or so long. But this partly grown feath is just 7 inches. When I take a full grown tail and cut some flying macaws out, it will become feathest.