Do not arouse the snowy owl
from mothering. You’re not allowed.
The wind must transmit your request
through feathers on her face which hear
your surreptitious step.
She has no broth for whooping cough.
Her egg’s no cure for alcohol
or any other ill that leads
a violator down a hall
to find a sleeping nest.
Her own chicks huddle in a hollow
of rock she scraped out with her talons.
Your visits here could be curtailed
at a whim of wind, a motion filed
against your freezing hands.
Don’t touch her nestling’s twig of leg,
record its yellow eyes and beak.
Your research questions must be scanned
on solar disk, on treeless land
Down she swoops, she comes with news.
Don’t tell her, she’ll tell you.
And if you knew, what would you do?
Restore to bone lost mineral?
Make laughter less ephemeral?
Make one child well?
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