Nesting
Every night & every morning
I weave & unweave
a blanket of all the manifestations
I want to hold close. I wish
upon comets & airplanes
& fireflies fluttering indoors.
I hang garlands made of twisted
fortunes cracked
from crisp moons and
strands of goodluck
—beads & babyteeth & brightstones.
For warmth I keep caches of eyelashes
& melted stubs of birthday candles,
thick & ashy. I squirrel away
clumps of tealeaves
hoping they
meant something,
mean something.
Papercranes roost in my garden
in nests of loose buttons, bronze keys, pieces
of red seaglass.
I rub
my skin with flowers
& place fourleaf clovers
under my tongue.
I collect jars of seawater & sunlight
& bluesky & warm
carnival laughter.
I know the currency of dreams—
I pay my way with silver
coins & glass fishbowls
filled with twodollar bills
& I like to gnaw
on foundpennies,
tasting copper
thrown into fountains & lying
lonely in the street.
I hoard talismans,
trinkets, & torn
pages of poetry like
scripture & I sleep on a mattress
stuffed with shreds of horoscopes
& birthcharts, believing
in the permanence of stars.
Claire Nicholson (she/her) currently lives in Maine, where she was born. She is a graduate of Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. She enjoys plants, bagels, and ultimate frisbee. Nicholson has been previously published in Asterism: An Undergraduate Literary Journal and Gone Lawn. You can find her on Twitter @claire2n.
