Knotty Dreams

Staccato bursts
unravel my thoughts
Woodpeckers hammer
at a camera tower
oddly pleased
with each aluminum notch
they leave behind

Somewhere
a sparrow mends her nest
in the city dome’s framework

tugging at frayed wire
and steel shavings

I crouch in the closet
to pull out my treasure
An antique popsicle stick
stained and burnished
from a century of curious hands
Cut from something called pine
Now sealed in acrylic

My son clings
to every story
of marionettes carved from living oak
Pulses of grain
winding, spinning
around vigilant knotty eyes.