Here's another something inspired by the latest post at 52 - It's worth taking a look at their prompts, for they are so full and so thoughtful and so stimulating. I don't know if this is a 'poyem' what I have produced, but it's certainly different from what I normally do and I enjoyed doing it. And now I gift it to you - whoever you are.
SHE HOLDS MY HEART IN HER HANDS
A song thrush nest
in the cup of her two hands
plaited grass and sticks
mud made spit wet and spat
lined with feathers
golden threads of hair
and the softest words.
And, ‘Put it down,’ I said,
kissing her neck,
touching her breasts,
plump and warm as doves.
And, ‘Please,’ I said, and
‘Please,’ again, and again,
‘Please,' and, 'put it down.’
Then eggs in her nest
small and round and two
sky blue and bright
henspeckled and flecked
with flakes of black
like soot or the flung
flight of crows far off.
And I held her to me
stick thin or broom handles
a rattle in her every
burr-saw breath
as brittle as glass
or the frosted webs of spiders
sharp as all corners.
Chicks one day
and hunger that must be fed
flies with crinkle paper wings
and worms pink as insides
and last year’s berries
till another day feathers flapping
testing what air might be.
Small as nothing when
I touch her, if I dare,
and she does not know me,
like trees do not know
the lover who cuts his name
into the body of bark
and cuts it deep.
Now the birds are all
fledged and flown
nothing left
nothing at all, but
an empty nest and
the sound of birdsong
when it is gone.
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