Still as wood

stacked beside

a darkened house

it begins:

one limb

unlevering itself

then a crisp

wing and it

creeps along

the window sill:

a paperclip

learning to walk

tapping antenna

like canes

moving stiff-

legged

stunned by

chill yet soon

it will hang

electric beneath

summer eaves

layering its nest

with paper

venom seething

under the hover

and so I roll

my thumb

clean across

its armored

head to crush

it bloodless

as a seed

beneath the nail.

Michael Bazzett’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in West Branch, Green Mountains Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Bateau, Los Angeles Review, Sentence, Best New Poets, Diagram, and The National Poetry Review, among others. He was the winner of the 2008 Bechtel Prize from Teachers & Writers Collaborative.