To the Robin's Child

What can I say to you, this small dark
puddle of bone and tissue, paper
shell half crushed?

It is green here, and warm and moist.
The grass is foamed with white clover,
the trees turning dark for summer.
The sky today is heavy and the color of old
snow-

Perhaps your mother's tiny yellow foot
slipped, maybe they fought-your parents-
over dinner about his mother coming to stay,
maybe he kicked in anger, punching
clawed toes, then stood horrified.

Or perhaps the storms that shook
my windows this week shook her wings,
your poor small mother with far too many
small skulls to protect.

As it is you will miss the trip south come
October - your siblings
will perch on telephone wires in suburban Georgia
and wonder.

Dangers surround them- plate glass
windows pale as the sky, orange cats
with yellow eyes that glow in the evening.

In the morning drizzle all i can see here are
the threads of your neck,
your tiny closed eye.