After my checkup, hatchlings sitting on a broken
bough startle at the form I’ve taken.
Who’s to say what cures & what chafes?
So far, my generation has
discovered Higgs bosons, gravitons, quarks—
nuclear folly & deterrents.

The hatchings nibble at clippings of timothy
while I can still hear the nurse
tugging a ticker-tape of arrhythmias.

If wishing could reprieve
bones, I’d retrieve that echo through all those
lifetimes when I climbed a trellis
the full width of the patio
to replace a fallen fledgling.

If a hint might reawaken
the wilder beast with whom I’m unfinished
one or two lifetimes from now, I’m curious
how (or if) the bird will sing
the encore of my heartbeat.

– Bob Haynes

Author’s Note: This poem was written in 2022, which was not only a year of a continuing pandemic but also a year of personal loss. My brother and sister died early in the year, a little more than a month apart. This poem reflects that loss and the loneliness that comes from knowing I am the last of my family still standing.