'Woodpecker Houseguest' by Alycia Calvert

We put it off, blame winter snow for obscuring nesting materials, hear in-wall chicks as snow thaws into wildflower. We climb, rung by rung, equipped with gloves, goggles, filling foam. We climb, counting your holes, a scatter plot parabola triangulated around meaning.

In bed, we spoon, find our utensils don’t fit, layers spread space thick between us. “Why are we lonelier together?” We perform fear-based love. Your beak-tapped messages a respite. Our winter nights less lonely, we live for you. On the top rung, your nest empty. “We” dissolves into “he” and “me.” I spray expanding foam into our absence.