To a Bird

To a Bird

Dan Rattelle

Who made her nest inside a statue’s palm –
simulacrum of safety, as if a man
would hesitate before he closed his fist
around the straw she plucked from cover-crop,
whose eggs grew cold against the wished-for flesh
and stolen by a boy to throw away.
Who didn’t know she was herself an image
impressed like sealing wax upon a world
of watchers, weary of the post, on the cusp
like static between one station and another.

---

Dan Rattelle
Poet & Author

Dan is a poet from New England and the author of the book Painting Over the Growth Chart (Wiseblood, 2024).

Photography by Lina Verovaya