A lifetime ago,

crouched together

in the graveled drive,

swathed within

the hickory’s mutable shade,

we small creatures gathered

that straight-torsoed tree’s

green-hulled spheres.

Flesh rusted

beneath nails’ crescents,

we peeled and prized,

released the small,

smooth spheroids within.

With teeth,

with stones clutched

and knuckled,

we shattered

the inner carapaces,

picked

crenelated chambers

free of sweet nut meat

to eat

and left behind

haphazard patterns

of heaped

discarded shells.

The hickory was felled

half a lifetime later,

for raining nuts on

the car parked below.

And my small creature’s heart,

nested within the adult’s,

fissured,

broke.

 

— C.Birde, 10/16