Mignon

It is in the strata of woven twigs
I shelter my life. Notice the incorporation
of plume and silk, the finest threads
gleaned from bin and clothesline.

Here, where the wind lionizes endurance,
one might claim a moment in the lull
to knit a nest of beauty and sawgrass.
I lodge in a cottonwood, a common tree

amid a copse of sisters, wren-dull
and smaller than a fist. But it is said
my voice is fine. Its churr and trill
loops through the boughs and leaves

a lace of blossoms strewn beneath.
It is storm season now and I am nestled
in this scooped lair of lichen and prayer.
I petition the gods of pupae and seed,

the emperors who own the sky,
even the man who wields the saw;
Give me spring once more and I will sing
to shame the bright and faithless cockerel.