Open as the windswept plain

lit by monkey tricks and smiles

scudding clouds in chattering trees

her ten, tender, infectious years

spread tendrils across

a far wider, deeper swath

as aunts and uncles

through tears and cracks

recalled how she embraced

upon a wall in her new room

a gazelle’s mounted head

and spread around its neck

a feather boa blue; and how

with her cousin she would play

Siamese twins, and a pajama set

made one out of two

Savannah quietly stole past

our Private Property,

Do Not Trespass,

red warning signs, and swiftly

sliced our chain-link fences.

All at once, shy deer

and new, unfamiliar creatures

appeared in our garden, brown eyes

begging, “How will you treat us

on this short, short day?”

A plain plumed sparrow flashed

through sunlit woulds and coulds,

its steady trill declaring,

“Dare I dare? Dare I dare?

How dare I not, on this short, short day!”

Savannah sparrow - North American, having brown and white plumage, with a yellow stripe over each eye.