Nest of pebbles on the doorstep –
a pagan offering, the work of small hands –
its matted grass walls, breached,
its fledglings, scattered:
mudstone, basalt, granite, schist.
No beak, no wing, no blood-
warm feathered rump to tender heat,
crack the silicon shell. No fluttering
four-chambered igneous beat.
Cuckoos, they will know flight –
the pinch of a child’s fingers,
the toe of a mud-scuffed shoe.
This poem was originally published in The Lonely Crowd Issue 10 (2018).