(for Marjorie Evasco)

You hold a small bird to your breast.
You who have mothered and know how
it is to nurse a second fluttering heart,
to let your body make space for another
as if it were the most natural thing

now shape your sure hand lightly into wing;
a gesture of compassion, like prayer, as free
of hesitant desire as the hatchling knows of fear
and what must surely come, one cloudless day
in unmistaken whispers. This is Hope:

the clear eye fixed beyond the narrow frame,
the fragile talon poised on no more firm foundation
than this flesh, the ruffled down sufficient and at trust.
I, a weak father, lack the language and the innocence
to call down angels. Once I found a fallen nestling

whose parents’ unschooled artistry did not after all
withstand the previous evening’s storm. Blind,
leathery and clawing, ants come already to plunder,
I scooped it (not untenderly) to shade, covered
it with leaves. Was the decent thing to have kept vigil

or leave quietly?  My daughter, 4, knows that goldfish
go to heaven when they go, but more to the point,
that they don’t come back. She leans on my arm, asks
me never to die, her small heart strong enough to love
and not tire. What do we do to earn our time on earth?