Brian Timmerman
Brian Timmerman received a B.A. in English from U.C. Davis and lives in West Hills, CA, a suburb of Los Angeles, with his wife and two daughters. For twenty-five years,he’s coached youth club swimming teams. His poems have appeared in print in Salamander, Welter, Blue Earth Review, Northridge Review, and online at cathexisnorthwestpress.com (Jan 2019), and the Splash section at hauntedwaterspress.com. (April 2019)
An Overnight Nest
appeared like a package above the front porch.
I would think it best to avoid the porch light.
A back-up incubator, I guess, in case of intruder
or flighty mother, or a bald-eagle-like talon fight
where they’re locked in, spinning, falling to earth.
The world at its worst when you’re big eyes
and a wide open mouth, before you can fly.
I turned on the porch light to admire the architecture:
long, thick under-sticks for support, breadth,
then thinner sticks, a mix, a bowl of softer stuff.
I’m sure those blue strands were pulled off our carpet.
The world at its best when you’re sitting soft,
squished between brother and sister, singing for
mother, who returns with a story, dinner on her breath.
And How!
I have an idea of a three-legged dog
and how he goes about it, chest falling
faster than he’d like, sworn in, at gravity,
then chest rising past sweet inhalation, a trip
to troposphere’s top, an upset vanquished.
That he coasts on rollers doesn’t make it
pleasant, but my imagination can’t be undone,
even if I step heavenly, tread heavy when I run.
But there he is, a thing, a being on his way,
black fur makes for fuzzy triangle ears, blurs
his lines, yet he moves with a vicious exuberance,
an eloquence to be. I find him full in the night.
He pauses to look at me languishing in grace.
Then he gets back to it, and I have no idea.
Sheila-Na-Gig online 