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.