The nest that held all winter to the oak
leaning
over the lake

unraveled in a late-spring storm

feathered wrapped round


one of the spilt whorled galaxies
tonguing clefts in the deep night sky above the water


Days later, rowing back from Hubble Island, the splashless
oars lift and dip

spinning brief steep whirlpools


closer closer to where we might have stayed for good

and those who might have stayed with us
as if

we were built not of twigs and grass but stone