The trouble with feeding baby mammals
with an eyedropper or a syringe
is that the formula is likely to end up in the lungs
and pneumonia ensues.
The pet clinic gave us a smaller syringe free.
One cc. Easier to wield. It was wrapped
in pink post-it: "for baby squirrel,"
followed by a scrawled heart.
He is naked, the color of
a pair of gray velour shoes,
and his snout is strangely dragonish:
he is blind and ungrateful,
but he wants desperately and entirely to live,
and maybe we are hoping he will someday tell us why.
1 comment:
When my friend's daughter was in her early teens, she rescued a baby thrush fallen out of its nest. She kept it safe from their cats and dogs in the spare room, got advice on how to rear it, fed it by hand, it would run up her arm and stand on her head, and shat all over the place. It fledged fully and they weren't quite sure what to do with it, researched reintroducing it to the wild and made plans. One late summer evening it sang, lovely sounds, my friend said, coming from the room, and the following morning they found it dead.
I know, sounds like a piece of Victorian fictional sentimentalia, but they assured me it was true.
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