We met before I had a name. She gawked at me inside the womb. When I grew hair, she picked at it until I was a bald egg. She plucked worms from the soil and dropped them in my mouth. I chewed and some of them were coins. Rats. Bullets. My teeth chipped on the metal. She said: I am the reason you have teeth. I opened a window. She bit the handle off. Have you no shame, kicking out the thing that birthed you? Soon my room was feathers and thin shrieks. She bit me by the neck scruff and paraded me over the city, screeching. Fresh meat! Soft rolls! Thin bones! I wrestled out and landed, knees first, on the asphalt. Don't be so sensitive! She threw me in a river and mourned my unexpected loss. Crows brought over beef roasts. Pot pies. Crumbles. She wept into the pudding, found a piece of chicken wedged inside her beak, and dislodged it with my rib bone.