When I was a child I was terrified
of the space between One and Zero

vast as the ages before my birth
strait as my death—late at night

I heard my parents arguing
lovingly in their locked room,

the angora cat coming home
with a sparrow in her mouth,

and the raindrops on the shingles
counting themselves—how to sleep,

how to cross the empty place
between the name “sparrow”

and that limp thing crying,
adamant, creating me with its cry