and not twigs.

It took him twelve round months

to spin a nest of tables out

of hazel wood, oak, and the spaces

between the weft and weave of time

inside his wordless wooden heart.

And on the night that it was finished,

a family – of mouse and bird

and cat – lay down inside the nest

of tables, making it their home;

as unexpected as that seems.

Your protestation – ‘Mouse? Bird? Cat!

What sort of family is that?’ –

fell flat upon my ears. And yet

you never questioned that a nest –

a nest! – might be made from tables,