I’m Full of Envy for Birds These Days
by Jennifer Frank

I listen to the finches out back.
A plastic bag dangling in the tree
fills with scraps of their chatter.

Thin twigs volunteer for nesting.
Others reach out to hold it all together.
We all long in our own ways.

A robin picks at the loose thoughts
I left on the lawn.   Stray ideas make
sturdy nests.   From the window,

I pull at a thread on my sleeve, recall
how ravel and unravel share the same
meaning.   I’ve been stringing

Myself along for months this way.
I tug on the yarn, discover the mystery
of this sweater.   It’s a revelation I can handle.

If only the sticks and leaves I catch
in my hair and on my coat as I bike
through overgrown forests could make

such a comfortable home.   Shake a nest
from my body at the end of the day.
It all goes back to the birds.

If my heart were an egg, I’m not sure
whether I would warm it in my palms, or
crack it over the edge of a smooth, white bowl.