She's a prize forager.

An assortment of beetle wings are arranged

like shiny badges under her bed.

Her meal worms have been freeze-dried with such care

that they twitch in the bowl

when resurrected with just a speck of water.

She smells of … preening oil, salt, top notes of earth.

My mother is turning bird.

This tiny, impossible thing

perched in my hand,

molecules exciting her eyes.

Then the soft click-click that unlocks

her humanity, she separates from the tips of my fingers,

hops to the gap in the window,

leaving complex glitter in my palm.