My Chick

You’re skin and bones, chick. Compassion commands me stop, stare, on my path, where you sleep. I see dryness, hear stillness, feel silence. You’re skin and bones, chick. Were your chirps for worms silenced in unsound Mother’s ears? Your wings, too weak, too still, on your first, failed, flight? Your plume-less limbs Coverless in cold night? Uncovered corpse, bony chick. No shore water to wash away your undug green grave in a low, lonely juniper. My eyes wash me in salt water. I have a path; yours ends here your bones sinking, my brain soaring. Which frightened robin, fleeing my footsteps, was your misguided mother? So unlike mine, who saw her child, underfed, and said, “You’re skin and bones, my chick.”