The first imagined bird was a small clay sketch, simple, endearing, and a little droopy. It melted in a kiln fired too hot. To rescue it from entropy, the bird was conjured again, this time carved in stone from memory alone. Like Borges’s Pierre Menard rewriting the Quixote word for word, the hope was to reach the same result by a different path. The new bird came out different all the same. It is more refined and more self-assured, and it perches confidently on its wooden base, as if it has forgotten it is only the avatar of an almost-forgotten bird.