Strange temples vie their architects.

Outside in the territory of birds

a carpenter is constructing a roof

as if today, tomorrow, legs might

escape into wings. We nest,

we break open, we give birth

to what we feed. In the compost,

molecules, imperishable atoms,

old lives razed and bodilessly

rephrased by an Earth that rejects

nothing. This year a wild sweetness

is growing my garden, self-sowns

ripening so vibrantly there’s a chance

for storage. The egg in my hand

is also ripe. It trembles like a

seismograph. Whether to breach

the shell. Which way the cracks

would run, which way the blood.