When I was a little girl
no older than five,
I ran around our neighborhood,
my entire world at the time,
and helped
an aging neighbor
find her lost canary.

Then
when I was an older girl
still no more than eight,
I walked around our neighborhood,
small in retrospect,
carrying a baby bird left for dead.
Like a flower smothered by curtains,
wilting in the heavy shadows of my hands.

A year later,
I hold my finger out
to some bird perching in our tree,
free as dizzy dust
playing tag in the streaming light of day.

Now I’m left with
limp party streamers
swaying in the wind,
dancing with scattered daffodils
in gutted greenhouses

But when I curl my hands just right,
like a folding lotus,
I can still whistle
to them.