Albatross mothers fly over water
for hard glints, food signals
to feed chicks flopping fuzzy,
thin-skinned on lava-black beaches.
They grab bottle caps, lighter fragments,
fork and comb tines to regurgitate
into gaping beaks, fill their chick’s loose
coin purse bellies that starve and burst.
Eyes shrivel to peppercorns.
Bodies, bone and feather shadows,
cracked open, spill out plastic,
piñatas filled with dollar store favors
smacked open and left rotting around
the mound of discarded party minutiae.