Nesting
by Megan Merchant
I visit their growth before the light wades
into the tree-line and warms the nest--
a cup of leaf-litter, spider-silk and twig.
In this wild, I have the privilege of speaking softly,
letting my shadow and footfalls groove a path
so that I can find them again in the thicket--
a pair of hummingbird hatchlings--
past the flooded creek bed, weed sprout and stone.
They have grown easy with my presence.
They have grown.
My own child, still asleep under a weighted blanket,
is slipping farther into the quiet.
His brain stuttering through sleep.
It is spring, but we are still wintering the garden
of shapes and colors,
learning the words to name his wants--
rusted hinges to the doors he needs open to feel safe.
When he wakes in a panic, I try to hush the flailing.
Wrap him close. Both wing and arm,
trying to get a hold of the air.
Lighting a Candle for our Dead
by Megan Merchant
I hear the woodpecker’s hollow knock,
but the door is sewn with weeds.
The widow’s web glints mystic
in the alcove
before the house unsettles into waking.
For now, I stand a breath away
from a hummingbird on the branch
and watch how the light brightens
her feathers red
where a heart would be
if I had glued her together.
My grandmother told me
that wisp is the mouthpiece
of the dead,
flapping back.
But when I stand on the tallest table
and try, my own arms stick in the joints.
I want to know if she has nested my unborn
in this late frost,
if her knuckles still crick when held,
if her skin is still slogged over fishing-line bones.
Or, if she is able to unseam the finery of something
as lonely as prayer,
knot it around her for warmth.
Vermeil
by Megan Merchant
I look up the dulled breast scampering in the low bush
below the dining room window.
A Common Rosefinch, scouting seeds, the name weighed
without any delight,
as stocky as a housewife. (Males carry the bright color).
Little finch, coned beak wringing the dish towel,
sorting socks still damp from the broken drier.
Polishing the silver.
I see her in every window, looking out.
Uncombed as a thing of beauty.
Red apron strings loose, eyes crimped with tired,
holding a child against her chest,
someone who can record the feel of her heart beat,
assure her she is living. Hungering in the dry oak.
Wintering in the garden.
Megan Merchant is the author of Gravel Ghosts, The Dark’s Humming (Glass Lyre Press), four chapbooks, and a forthcoming children’s book. She was awarded the 2016-2017 COG Literary Award and is an editor at The Comstock Review. You can find her work at meganmerchant.wix.com/poet.
by Megan Merchant
I visit their growth before the light wades
into the tree-line and warms the nest--
a cup of leaf-litter, spider-silk and twig.
In this wild, I have the privilege of speaking softly,
letting my shadow and footfalls groove a path
so that I can find them again in the thicket--
a pair of hummingbird hatchlings--
past the flooded creek bed, weed sprout and stone.
They have grown easy with my presence.
They have grown.
My own child, still asleep under a weighted blanket,
is slipping farther into the quiet.
His brain stuttering through sleep.
It is spring, but we are still wintering the garden
of shapes and colors,
learning the words to name his wants--
rusted hinges to the doors he needs open to feel safe.
When he wakes in a panic, I try to hush the flailing.
Wrap him close. Both wing and arm,
trying to get a hold of the air.
Lighting a Candle for our Dead
by Megan Merchant
I hear the woodpecker’s hollow knock,
but the door is sewn with weeds.
The widow’s web glints mystic
in the alcove
before the house unsettles into waking.
For now, I stand a breath away
from a hummingbird on the branch
and watch how the light brightens
her feathers red
where a heart would be
if I had glued her together.
My grandmother told me
that wisp is the mouthpiece
of the dead,
flapping back.
But when I stand on the tallest table
and try, my own arms stick in the joints.
I want to know if she has nested my unborn
in this late frost,
if her knuckles still crick when held,
if her skin is still slogged over fishing-line bones.
Or, if she is able to unseam the finery of something
as lonely as prayer,
knot it around her for warmth.
Vermeil
by Megan Merchant
I look up the dulled breast scampering in the low bush
below the dining room window.
A Common Rosefinch, scouting seeds, the name weighed
without any delight,
as stocky as a housewife. (Males carry the bright color).
Little finch, coned beak wringing the dish towel,
sorting socks still damp from the broken drier.
Polishing the silver.
I see her in every window, looking out.
Uncombed as a thing of beauty.
Red apron strings loose, eyes crimped with tired,
holding a child against her chest,
someone who can record the feel of her heart beat,
assure her she is living. Hungering in the dry oak.
Wintering in the garden.
Megan Merchant is the author of Gravel Ghosts, The Dark’s Humming (Glass Lyre Press), four chapbooks, and a forthcoming children’s book. She was awarded the 2016-2017 COG Literary Award and is an editor at The Comstock Review. You can find her work at meganmerchant.wix.com/poet.