Nest
Sunrise walk over the hill,
grass wet with morning,
August pavement steaming sun,
mud like black tea, thick murmur
of traffic beyond the trees. You
want to stall the day, pause the rush
to the streetcar, you sit on a worn bench
hover in grey humidity. At your feet
a nest of needles and twigs, a split of bark
fanned like a sparrow's wing. You imagine
placing it in your briefcase among folders
and files you never got to, a bruised pear
pressed against tupperwared salad
that you will likely trash for a slice
of pizza at noon, pen and newspaper -
and today's dreadful headline:
the child dismembered
and scattered across the city.
You lean forward,
pick it up, hold it in the palm
of your hand - warmed by sun,
no bark, no fallen limb of tree,
soft brown feathers, pinched blue
skin and a tiny smooth-bone shoulder.
And the nest, the earth-and-twig hollow
carved by grief, the bell-shaped void
where the rest of the bird went missing.
From Narcissus Unfolding by Jim Nason (2011)