• hungry heart •

baby bird | Karin C

oh, my heart
a complicated organ
driving and cycling with pumpjack consistency
yet its fabric resembles
a newly hatched featherless chick

vulnerable, tender and pale pink

it cartwheels and writhes
through life’s twists and eddies and crests

its size increasing
at each son’s birth
its weight doubling
at my marriage’s end

it races when I speak publicly
flutters at a glance from someone attractive
bursts with joyful rays, knowing my sons are friends
melts in the presence of true love
delights while watching birds in synchronized flight

loves quicker than it probably should
with the expansiveness of a Montana prairie

it raises a prayer when an ambulance screams by
winces when stung by rejection’s pinpricks
grieves with a friend’s unbearable loss
sinks and weeps when my dad asks
with soft and earnest eyes
who my parents are

gets tugged at the sight of a woman
with ratty hair and aching eyes
holding cardboard with black marker words

homeless — definitely
pregnant  — possibly
anything helps

and despite all it endures and encounters
from joyful wheelies
to pokes and barbs and stabs
it remains agape and unflinching
like that baby chick's mouth splayed open so wide
you can see all the way into its tiny, empty belly

my heart
that yielding fleshy organ
still hungers
for more

Karin C © 2026

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