THE DAY AFTER A GIRL SPROUTED IN THE FLOWERBED by Kathleen McGookey

Mother  yanked her out.  I  filled my watering can with  milk.
In  the  hollow,  we  could   barely  see my  bedroom’s  yellow
eye.   I  patted  dirt  over  her  bloody  roots and stood her up
again.  When I stroked her cheek, she turned toward me and
opened  her  mouth.  And when she sang,  she  sang  about a
sparrow  and  a  leaf.   And  when  she  yawned,  I  saw  baby
teeth.   Would  she  grow?   Would  she  live?   She  needed  a
collar  of  feathers,  a  pillow  of  violets. A  birchbark  suit.  A
firefly lantern outside a small house  made of stones polished
in  the  creek.    Mother’s   shadow  opened  my   window  and
called.   We  didn’t  have long.   The  tree  frogs’  silver  chorus
rose  in  waves as  I ran  back  to  my  house.  I could still hear
the  girl’s  faint  sparrow  song.   Maybe  she  was  calling   me.