The Bird

by Holly Day


The tiny bird flaps in the grass near me
watches my approach with eyes like glass beads
opens its mouth as if expecting
random acts of maternal kindness from everything
around it, even me. Overhead

the mother robin peeps in distress, also
watching me with shiny eyes
a look of resolution on its face as if
it’s already decided I am incapable of love.


* * * * *

Holly Day (hollylday.blogspot.com) has been a writing instructor at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Grain, and Harvard Review, and her newest poetry collections are Into the Cracks (Golden Antelope Press), Cross Referencing a Book of Summer (Silver Bow Publishing), The Tooth is the Largest Organ in the Human Body (Anaphora Literary Press), and Book of Beasts (Weasel Press).