Robins keep their nest tidy, manage to avoid befouling the twigs as the eggs rupture into
chicks grow in four days to fledglings. The how: worm in, tucked into gaping hole,
I mean beak, I mean need. Shit out, worm the trigger, expel a solid thing that can be
grabbed and flown away. Scattered, I think, so no one can trace the waste back to
flightless children, to the safehouse. In my house I find myself. Yelling about the piles
on every flat surface, the ketchup I cannot find because no one ever, no one but me puts
things back, ever puts anything where it belongs. Even though it is the weekend I do not
feel like having the scheduled sex that sustains our hungry skin. In the hot shower, night
so shallow the sky is still blue above the tree shapes that close in on us like teeth, I laugh,
I laugh. I am on the verge of tears. Let in the music, new themes for
protection. Try to overwrite the earworm already tunneling. I beg new lines. Inflate like
a python unhinged, squeeze me like I imagine mother love, wrap me up to take the body
blows from me, for me. Look around, look around – how lucky we are... The robin feeds
cold blueberries to the babies, straight from m fridge, straight in a line I laid down on
the arm of a sunchair. She brings them a worm so fat and flailing I worry she has caught
a newborn snake. I worry about the birdlings. The news warns tatters of a tropical storm
will arrive soon from the Southeast, stroking the coast with wind fingers, rain fingers,
skimming over what is solid. My husband holds my hand as we fall asleep. He always
falls asleep first.
