Single Moms Have No Time for Birdwatching: Ask Me How I Know

Lurching around on those twig feet,
you must be a parent, barely
escaping ruin. Are you hurt,
little wife? Are you brooding, as I am,
tongue-tied over multiple endings?

If I could open a pocket-lined wing
concealing a cure: wilt-proof
youth. All-weather roots.

Starting over impels us to shelter 
where doubt builds its house,
shaky as braided winterkill 
smeared with the local dirt, the walls, 
chancy as greenstick fractures.