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

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.