Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.

Its leg was not broken. It was not homeless.
It clenched in my hands, a living flinch.
You cannot love so much and live,
it whispered, its spines clicking like teeth.
I hid it from itself in a cardboard box.

Overnight it nibbled a hole and slipped away.
I cried so much my mother thought I’d never stop.
She said, ‘you cannot love so’ and yet
I grew to average size and amused a lot of people
with my prickliness and brilliant escapes.