Nests Interior To The Heart

by Laura Johnson

 

See the cobwebs cloudy

across the burners—

the oven door ajar

with rusted hinges stuck.

Jagged window pane

like a silent iceberg cuts

dusted rays of thick yellow sunlight

over the littered floor

covered with busted boards and broken jar—

shiny black liquid jelled hard.

Even the ants don't come anymore.

 

Splintered sheleves hold rusted tins.

Shredded pieces of faded wallpaper

cream stained pink roses

with stems gone grey

woven with bits of straw—

the sparrow's nest

from a dozen springs ago

now the makeshift den of field mice

with their brown tufts of fur

tucked between strands of paper

and straw and horsehair that came

from the chair with cracked legs,

a pile of sticks by the hanging door

where the wind enters as no stranger

and dances within these crooked walls

as the frost of late November

settles like fine French lace

on everything that was

left behind.

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