Possibly Extinct

The list said 1937. The list said possibly extinct, and the list was not wrong about the list.

On Bangka, meanwhile, something with saucer eyes kept coming down out of what trees were left into kitchens, gardens, the shoulder of the road.

People rang. People sent a photo on WhatsApp: it's here again, the small one with poison in the crook of its arm. Ninety-odd times since 2015 somebody came with a box.

Seven had touched the power lines. One was caught in a fence. One met a dog. Eighty-six went back to seven patches of forest, chosen because they're still there.

It was lost the way a name is lost on a page nobody turned. On the island it went on, one hand, then the other, not letting go of the branch, or the wire, whichever was there.