The Empty Nest
“Look”, she said, from the sunken hammock
rocking to the amniotic pulse
that hummed through the chain that linked on the hook
that was screwed into the tall pines
that reached all the way to heaven,
“that bird is walking upside down, down the length of the trunk.”
He took notice, though noticing was not ‘normal’ for him.
to her, he seemed a puffy little politician, scrambling for votes
of confidence from crawling ants and eight-legged walk-abouts
who hid beneath the fluttering shadows of spring
as he cocked his head in slightly more than concern.
Was it a he-bird or a she-bird, she could not know,
or where the mate of the season was, or whether he, or she,
migrated back here from a winter’s sojourn
on some subtle season in the south, or whether they even had eggs yet
to lose, in the winds, or to be taken by nest-robbers.
She decided he was a male, quite filled with caterpillars,
beetles, wasps, bees, a bulging belly and gray mourning coat,
feasting after a funeral, perhaps. In fact, the rusted curves
beneath his wings, may have,to some, designated him “Doctor,”
with little time to scrub before coming out to check on her.
“How does your recovery go?” he asked between the puff on his pipe
and his interest in something beneath his nail.
“Listen,” she said, “it sings to the babies in the fur-lined nest.
Do you suppose they sing back?”
“What nonsense you have become since our trip back from Africa,
sprawled against that jute like a sunburned sunflower, your eyes
black as misery and your belly mapped with the roads of the journey.”
She watched the titmouse, heard it chitter, and knew him to a hawk
waiting to feed on the rest of her. Her nest was empty.
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