When we were children mother came home
with hands for us. Before, it was our faces
to the plate. Our feet father smuggled
home in time for us to begin school.
Imagine my brother and me: only
a spectral space between ankles and cold
linoleum. From the stoats he stole
our eyes and something shrunk
inside of us so small that sparrows were born
from our faces and blew about
until they crumbled and we caught them
on our tongues but were always hungry.