What Remains Unbroken

A Hometown Poem

mother is not a word
nest is not twigs
(it is spine and breath and
feather-wrapped vigilance)
she
(storm-silent
wind-warm)
becomes
a stillness sharper than teeth

nothing
touches
this circle
without asking
the permission
of her eyes
even the sun
keeps its
distance
because beneath her
the almost-heartbeats
never came

we watched
we waited
we whispered warmth
into the hush
we counted days—
twenty-eight,
the number held in every hollow bone
and still
more than two weeks passed
with no crack,
no cry,
only silence
stacking itself
like stone

and she did not blink
for fox
for man
for time
nor even for the truth
of what would not become
(you call her bird—
i say cathedral
with wings)

and in that cathedral
we knelt
with her
in the ache
and we grieved
for something
we never knew
(but loved
just the same)

until one morning
she stepped from the nest
quiet as dusk
covered the eggs
and did not return

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