pallid ovenbird The leucistic squirrels of Lakeshore are white like winter weasels. We are taken in by their lack. They are rare and so they are beautiful. Strange, and so alluring. We want to see the holes in their genetic code that leave them to lead ghostly lives in the dark of their dreys with their pale babies wrapped in stolen fleece. When I catch sight of a furry whitecap ripping across a shingled rooftop my dad pulls the car to the side of the road and we risk being flattened by traffic to stand and watch this unusual creature disappear into the bole of a tree. We are sanctified and we go home with our souls scrubbed clean. If I put all my lacks on display, would you find me beautiful? Or would you only see what I might have become, had I been darkened by the fullness of my potential? 260228 what's it to you? who go blather from