Your thin echoes
clutched the bark like a soft

animal loving what it loves,
so quiet, so still, my startled

eyes marveled you didn’t blink
or buzz when I rubbed the split

of your back. You were empty,
a grandfather clock gutted

of gears. How did you keep
ticking & why could I hear

no ticks? I gathered ghosts of you
into a wicker basket. I tore

a handful of legs (I’m sorry)—
they stuck to the oak & I pulled

too quick for your delicate past.
When at last I spotted you,

the molted you, the ticking
& tymbaling you, I doubted

your silver belly & the green
of your glass wings. You crawled

up my hushed palm, the heft
of your abdomen a frenzied

mouth crying against my un-
belief. I fingered the drum

of your side & you flinched,
flailed up & back, dazed the air

with the surge of your body,
fevered thrum of your years.