A forgotten robin stands
before her nestlings and signals
with a look-away
that they have until the wind blows
to finish swallowing their worms.
They continue with their peeps
while looking all around
like she is not even there,
and when she tells them that
the wind has just blown
and takes their half-swallowed
worms from their hairless,
orange throats
they look stupefied
like they’ve just had their turkey
taken from them
for not eating appreciatively
enough on Thanksgiving.
The way she stands on her
feeding branch says
those who are left in the prison
yard once the doors close
will get whipped.
The vibe here seems to creak
I’ve been powerless all my life
but no more,
do what I say when I say or else,
I have no more patience for you.
She stands like death does
over the bed
waiting for the breath to leave,
even though the brain
is still working
for like twenty minutes afterward,
and the dying must watch death
turn and fly away as obligatory
as it arrived, tall, thin
and crossing its wings
like it has places to go
in shiny leather.
She thinks if she can make them
feel the gravity of their own
slowness in their clammy
drum-sounding hearts
that they’ll start to lock
onto her like a motion detector.
She has no clue I’m even here
or that I’ve spent decades
bending my emptiness
back and forth, honing the art of
swaying and failing to stay,
like a season.
I can’t show her she’s not here,
or that whatever she is feeling
is as invisible as she is,
and like that cloud up there,
has already passed.
Her willowy, reptilian legs say
everything is on an impossibly
tight schedule, good luck.
