I nurture thoughts of suicide like cuckoo chicks

in warblers' nests; I read last night about the tricks

the cuckoo plays on stupid mother birds:

she leaves her offspring in the other nest

to kill its foster-siblings and protest

its shrilling hunger to its nurse; absurd

and small beside the monstrous infant-thing,

she stuffs its gaping maw with dainty worms

and hairy caterpillars, which she brings

unceasingly. Bright twitching insects squirm

and cram its gut; she loves the parasite.

Her own chicks never feathered; their first flight

was falling, so their mother must deceive --

delude, beguile, blind herself or grieve.