Nests

But for my love and a fat Siamese
My house is usually empty.
But it is Friday. My turn.

Two sons in tow, we play at random words.
Virgin Mary! Revolutionary War!
Elephant dung! Apocalypse! Ear of corn!

Sam, 12, stops, exclaims, What is that? The sun?
And then we know. The moon! Ah, the moon.
His small voice says, It is a golden dome.

A white car holds us.
We hold the moon like a flat stone
To skip across

The prairie. Let’s keep playing, he says.
Grey, 15, begins: Monkey scrotum! Rooster comb!
Dental floss! Alien anal probe!

Once home and helloed, Sam builds
A fire surrounded by concrete blocks.
He feeds it hunks of scrap lumber

And wind-bleached tumbleweeds.
Eventually Grey is cold in thin clothes
And, having laughed enough with me, goes.

Sam tells me of the comet in Orion’s belt
Hidden in high clouds.
We walk to the side of the house.

Night has finally laid her white egg.
My boy whispers in a voice
That soon will not be a boy’s, It is so mysterious.

And it is: how quietly a nest can fill,
How quickly we can find
Ourselves alone in it.

2015