Watching the surgeon, your guide through thick shadows, whose words blur and fade through your shock—                   you remember, three speckled fledglings fresh from the nest, their grip unsteady on the fence-top;               and their plump thrush mother with a worm for their open-jawed crave; and how you viscerally felt a heart-leap—               as this skilled man sends options, like ropes, down to where you just fell.