Sing, Bird, Sing

The baby bird fell out of the nest. 

The baby bird fell out of the nest,  
and the boy laughed. 

The baby bird fell out of the nest,  
the boy laughed,  
and I just watched. 

            I don’t know why  

It’s the Sound
of that laugh, I remember,
the Sight
of his body, I recall,
the Sensation
of fear, I feel. 

I know the three Ss well— 

Sound: shrieking windshield wipers
caught in slow motion 

            when he mocks my Korean-tongued lisp  

Sight: white-skinned jack-in-the-box
swaying drunkenly on its spring 

            when he cringes away from my cold rice  
            and dried seaweed but not his school slop 

Sensation: icy spider webs under my skin
slicing through me like bladed threads 

            when he calls me chink and makes me wish  
            I was more white, even though I am white, just  
            not white enough 

The bird begins to cry. 
The boy continues to laugh. 

The fucking bird is crying, he says. I stare 
at the baby bird. Maybe 
the fucking bird is crying, maybe it’s not. 
I think the latter. 

            I know why 

It knows the three Ss well, too. 
It hears me breathing a few paces away. 
It sees me through half-lidded eyes. 
It senses that, between the boy and me, it is not alone. 

Maybe that is why I watched—  
to see if this unflyable, not-quite-bird could open its beak,  
to see if it could lift its large, wet head to the sky, 
to see if it could prove, one cry at a time,  
though it cannot today, that one day it will soar 
toward endless blue havens, but for now, beaten  
and broken, even if for just a little bit, it will sing.