Self Portrait with Nest

               "...Why am I not allowed
delight?" 
                                    - Ada Limón


One of the smallest nests is that of the hummingbird:
a tiny cup of felted twigs, lichen and moss, neatly 

plastered with spider silk. Meanwhile, the Montezuma 
oropendola in its cinnabar-colored tuxedo with a golden 

tail, feeds on wild papaya and mates with a number 
of females—they go on to build a colony of nests, 

a hundred or more distended vine-pouches hanging 
in the trees, tensile in high wind. Other birds turn wet

mud into the equivalent of concrete blocks, laying
pellets atop one another, on the faces of cliffs, until

they harden. How admirable is their industry, how
patient in thinking out purpose and design. In my own

nest I turn around and around, wanting more 
space: as much widening as my body can still make.