One
evening the plum tree was filled with starlings.
The
reason was, the leaves were choked with worms,
which
made my mother anxious. For this job birds
were
not the ticket. We needed cats
to
eat the starlings. Later through a porch screen
in
Illinois
flit
about the bird bath where I kept my frogs,
one
a sturdy tadpole, growing legs.
The
blackbirds got my frogs. I've forgiven my great aunt,
who
died soon after. But I dreamed about a fire,
and
I couldn't save my sister from a river –
but
awoke, retaining nothing but a puzzle.
My
father sprayed the worms. What happened to the starlings,
their
uncanny manna gone, I sometimes wonder.
