Now I will never go to the tern colonies
\nwhere I learned to spot nests in the sand
\nand collect chicks for you to band swiftly,
\nnoting their sex and type: Common or Arctic or Least.
\nYou blew on their bellies with a straw
\nto show there are no feathers there.
\nI felt their heartbeats tremble against my cheek,
\ntheir ankles that could snap like twigs.<\/p>\n
I will never fall face-first in the sand,
\nbody sprawled toward the one that got away:
\nif we are a week too late with the banding,
\nchicks run and scoot beyond my grasp.
\nYour torso shifts back
\nlike an old tree laughing at me.
\nMy hat is askew. Terns circle and squawk,
\nprotesting our invasion. They dive
\nfor the highest point: a tall stick
\nsewn to the side of my hat, inside of which
\nis blood, stained from other expeditions
\nwhen terns outsmarted us
\nor aimed badly in anger.
\nThey escort us to the skiff,
\nrestless like an army at the tide-line.<\/p>\n
You knew how long those birds live,
\nwhen the chicks would be ready for flight,
\nthe rate they traveled south on trade winds.<\/p>\n
I knew how it felt to be small in the palm of your hand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Now I will never go to the tern colonies where I learned to spot nests in the sand and collect chicks for you to band swiftly, noting their sex and type: Common or Arctic or Least. You blew on their bellies with a straw to show there are no feathers there. I felt their heartbeats … Continue reading Now I will never<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"issue":[6876],"class_list":["post-2098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","issue-6876"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 00:29:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2098"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=2098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}