The Nest in Winter
In the father’s shadowy hoard
pillows belch feathers across
mattress and floors:
what was an oriental rug, now
a carpet of scat, gone-astray socks,
calendars from rescue shelters
angling for checks.
There’s nothing to toss
among the vivid tethers to
Mother. Maybe my mother, maybe Father’s.
There’s no margarine container
any less pathetic than
a netsuke from Kyoto;
no expired sardine tin less urgent
than a dozen aerograms; no
receipt less intimate
than their honeymoon photo
snapped in the local aquarium.
The adult daughter takes in
the spew,
pabulum that a bird feeds its nestling.
The Dream of Leaves
How to access the material
of the unborn or the infant dream?
To rate, say, a rustling?
To value leaves rustling
before one realizes leaves? Before
one knows what a homonym is
or that every one thing
is a homonym after crowning—
The Dream of Shoji
How to say milk? How to say sand, snow, sow,
linen, cloud, cocoon, or albino?
How to say page or canvas or rice balls?
Trying to recall Japanese, I blank out:
it's clear I know forgetting. Mother, tell me
what to call that paper screen that slides the interior in?
Note: “The Dream of Shoji,” “The Dream of Leaves,” “ is reprinted from Brain Fever (WWN 2017), “Found Lines for a Ghazal on Water” is reprinted from The Ghost Forest (WWN 2024), and “The Nest in Winter” is reprinted from Foreign Bodies (WWN 2020).
