NEW! Poem by Nicole Walker

Nicole Walker

RATTLE

I bring to you, dear doctor, this mess of nests.

An intricate ball of string or white floss.

A rug woven by a woman sitting in a stall 

in the mall speaking Navajo to me and

Spanish to her brother. I pull out of my pocket

a wire from the cable, the one that brought

me delicatessen and sausage McMuffin

and foiegras in Illinois even though 

it’s illicit. I tell you this list

to give you some parameters

to suggest diagnosis and symptom,

cure, and preposition all in one. 

I know where my trunk lies. I know where 

my arms are but it’s against wind feed

and wind chill, wander zone and last pull

that I wonder. My nerves bite here and here, 

they’re couched

in pork fat and goose fat, pickled 

in cucumbers and red wine. They’re wrapped 

up in sweater and rug and the birds that sing

softly in my ear, dear doctor, are the ones

telling me that if you could just say

the word I would leave you alone but

I hear you tripping as sadly and as quickly

as I do over nest, branch, wire, string. 

If we could tease this out, dear doctor,

you wouldn’t have to listen through that cold

piece of an ear and I, dear doctor, could walk

away from here, named and meant and promised,

etched like a headstone, dear doctor. Sewn.