this morning—the cat that needs kept in
wants out, and the red-bellied woodpecker
is hectoring what he doesn’t seem
to be able to prod from the curb. I twitch
and the rabbit I have been watching
disappears; she’s been cutting clovers one by one,
sucking up each stem through her harelip
to the blossom, and I remember my dad
setting aside his meatball until he slurped his spaghetti,
saving the best to last, he called it, as if he were Christ
at the Marriage at Cana, explaining the late wine
from water turned, and I suppose he was a Christ of sorts—
a man of God who exonerated every disaster as opportunity
and thought I should do the same—
but most days I’m the robin flitting from her nest
in the spruce, tired of nesting there, thrusting my beak up
more like a nacho chip than a bishop’s mitre,
hungry from all this hiding and brooding.
No, no pious bird, just look how I am poking
through the grass to snag a worm, any worm—
bit for myself, bit for the kiddies,
so unlike that orthodox thing with feathers.
I can hop and I can walk,
and that must serve for salvation:
I take up my grubs and stalk back in
to feed the chicks.
