Invisible Nests
by Kelly Madigan
Suppose the neighborhood
where you and your sister grew up
fit into a locket you now wear
every day on a silver chain.
When you talk about the past
and disagree on details
one of you will remember
the tiny diorama, and together
you will spring it open, your temple
leaning against hers as you both peer
down the tiny street, find your one story
red brick house with three concrete steps
leading to the door, a wrought iron handrail.
Imagine the playpen is still in the yard,
because you were a baby before anyone
thought sunshine was damage, and in this locket
you are standing, a skill still new to you,
mouth rubbering the top edge, toes
trying the fabric mesh, bending your knees
and straightening, bending again.
You and your sister could reach in, unlatch
that front door, push it open and together
go inside, find the summer that your grandmother
traveled a thousand miles with her brown suitcase
because illness pinned your mother
to the couch and the military sent your father
on a mission—but you don’t. You both know
to keep it closed, without ever saying it out loud,
and instead try to find the platform treehouse
in a willow, the smell of your childhood dog,
all the bird nests that were unseen in the season
of green but made visible after time coaxed
every radiant leaf to the ground.
where you and your sister grew up
fit into a locket you now wear
every day on a silver chain.
When you talk about the past
and disagree on details
one of you will remember
the tiny diorama, and together
you will spring it open, your temple
leaning against hers as you both peer
down the tiny street, find your one story
red brick house with three concrete steps
leading to the door, a wrought iron handrail.
Imagine the playpen is still in the yard,
because you were a baby before anyone
thought sunshine was damage, and in this locket
you are standing, a skill still new to you,
mouth rubbering the top edge, toes
trying the fabric mesh, bending your knees
and straightening, bending again.
You and your sister could reach in, unlatch
that front door, push it open and together
go inside, find the summer that your grandmother
traveled a thousand miles with her brown suitcase
because illness pinned your mother
to the couch and the military sent your father
on a mission—but you don’t. You both know
to keep it closed, without ever saying it out loud,
and instead try to find the platform treehouse
in a willow, the smell of your childhood dog,
all the bird nests that were unseen in the season
of green but made visible after time coaxed
every radiant leaf to the ground.
Kelly Madigan has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Distinguished Artist Award from the Nebraska Arts Council. Her work has appeared in 32 Poems, Terrain.org, Prairie Schooner, Flyway and Calyx. Her books include The Edge of Known Things (SFASU Press) and Getting Sober (McGraw-Hill.)