Two small brown birds in the window box.
Linnets, my mother called them—
that musical, old-fashioned, old-country name.

The one clings to the trailing rosemary. Scatters
seed. The other calls and calls and calls.
For what? My mother is gone.

Hilda Weiss has poetry published or forthcoming in Spillway, California Journal of Poetics, Comstock Review, Salamander, Schuylkill Journal, and Rattle, among others. Her chapbook, Optimism About Trees, was nominated for a Pushcart prize. She is co-founder and curator for www.poetry.LA, a website featuring videos of poets and poetry venues in Southern California.