I help myself to material and immaterial,
No guard can shut me off, no law can prevent me — Walt Whitman

Along the pink rock mesa
fronting two brown hills,
last spring’s fledglings

attempt song.
I steal a flicker’s flash of fire,
sun-glint on a kinglet’s ruby crown.

I take all that I can.
Fear drives me to it.

Some birders place mist nets around yards,
catch incoming migrants,
hold blue-winged warblers to their mouths.

I gather feather and stone,
hang Jerusalem cricket
& clown beetle in the front window.

Dragging off all I can lug,
greed spurs me on.

From the newborn
desperate to talk,
I breathe evidence of fingers and toes,

and from their necks,
so goose-like they light the Rio Grande,
I rifle a message to my mother

about stars
that go on like numbers,
forever.

Then, running down the wash,
I thieve the blood wood of your heart.
Make it my own.

Without fear of consequence
I grab as much as I can hold.

Hunger makes me do it.