Helluva Effort

 

I don’t truss my chicks

before they’ve watched

the world spin by

for ninety days. I’m

all mussed up

with warnings wrought

by bigblack birds

with swollen beaks

that spout the speech

of ancestry. They eat

what I won’t bite &

squawk in tongues I can’t

commemorate except

to say: I came, I laid

my smallass down

upon the grass;

I did my goddamn

best to leave

a mark & then

I up & left.