I knew no more of death than a rabbit or turtle,
when I was three. I was wild with joy
because we rented a log cabin
with no plumbing. I found
a lost kitten, the least among us, Trixie.
After a while my father and sister
told me Trixie died, disappeared
because I fed her too much spaghetti.
4th of July,
I sentenced myself to the electric chair.
Spaghetti with tomato sauce in most states
is not a deadly weapon.
A child grave digger, at five
I found a dead red-winged blackbird,
the first time I touched the dead,
not the last—surprised how light
the bird was to lift and carry to the grave
I buried the motionless body
near blueberries, without a coffin.
I had to go back to public school soon.
A farmer, not a schoolteacher, taught me:
“You tell a crow from a raven by its tail.”
Late August I awoke,
saw two bats making love on my chest,
a miracle I did not push away.
Satisfied, they flew out an open window.
Another bat was trying to escape,
flew into a wall then a clothes closet,
the helpless thing terrified to hear me.
I caught him or her in father’s landing net,
its hooked mouth and wings caught in webbing.
Outside, I set the struggling wonder free.
Watchman, what did I learn that night?
I taught myself the only flying mammal,
the bat, is lighter than a hummingbird
that beats its wings a hundred times a minute.
—1999