Cover Art: Eliot Porter, "Red-Eyed Vireo with Cowbird," June 20, 1941, Gelatin silver print, MOMA

---

The Good Mother

​I think of the cowbird thieving space
in a twiggy bed, egg laid lickety-split

in a sparrow’s absence. My mother waits
for my weekly calls. I never heard her

say she loved me. The cowbird knocks bunting
or warbler brood from the nest to make room.
​
She has learned how to lay a quick egg,
how to spot a good mother.

---

Jim Zola is a poet and photographer living in North Carolina.

---

past, Fire Folio: Darren C. Demaree                                                                                                                                                                 next, Daniel Edward Moore