My Nest Was Built With Little Bones<\/p>\n
By<\/p>\n
Jennifer Angelina Petro<\/p>\n
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My nest was built with little bones,<\/p>\n
Shells, feathers, twigs, candy wrappers,<\/p>\n
Shiny things, torn pages of catechisms, shabads,<\/p>\n
And pornographic magazines,<\/p>\n
It was made of moss and hair, abandoned ribbons,<\/p>\n
Scraps of red bandannas, silken scarves,<\/p>\n
Shopping lists, and spit.<\/p>\n
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For years I incubated beneath the hollow-boned lark,<\/p>\n
Or was it a mockingbird?<\/p>\n
My shell survived storms<\/p>\n
And long stretches where only monsters,<\/p>\n
Drunken owls, and sleepy seagulls smothered me<\/p>\n
In the night.\u00a0 I learned to hide myself\u2014<\/p>\n
A nest within a nest\u2014an egg within an egg;<\/p>\n
I lived tucking parts of me away<\/p>\n
I never wanted.\u00a0 Brooding memories<\/p>\n
Filled the nest like bits of worms regurgitated,<\/p>\n
And every now and again I caught a glimpse of a faraway blue sky.<\/p>\n
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When the egg hatched and the nest<\/p>\n
Bloomed, I stared blindly into myself,<\/p>\n
Wiggling stubs of wings I so wanted covered with feathers and flight.<\/p>\n
Yet now, I live, I walk, a nest on legs, a human egg, a permanent fledgling\u2014<\/p>\n
Wings clipped, song raspy with rain and darkness,<\/p>\n
And a road of eggshells spreading out before me wherever I go.<\/p>\n
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