“nestlings” and “vivid as a dream” by Aaron M. Moe
nestlings
for David Anthony Martin*
slowly—ever so slowly
edging the lens
between the foliage
of our hanging geranium plant
in which a pair of house finches
nested for a second spring in a row
laying seven eggs this year
though we found one
smattered on the steps below
a day before they hatched
pink aliens?—yes
but on day three
it seemed the nest
cradled a raw heart
pumping with the pulsations
of six chambers
a bulbous mass
manifesting
on a different scale
a zygote
whose hunger flutters
toward flight
vivid as a dream
i remember
decades ago
being at a zoo in a city
(its name long forgotten)
a few feet back
from the bulletproof glass
holding a silverback
who slammed
his palms all
along that barrier
up and down
with deafening blows
until he whirled around in the straw
locked his eyes with my eyes
and flung
snap pea
after snap pea
into his mouth
never looking at the straw
nor at a single snap pea
nor at his fingers
never looking away from my stare
snap pea after snap pea
flung from those powerful hands
his eyes holding me hostage
staring me down
staring me down
*David Anthony Martin is the founder and editor of Middle Creek Publishing and Audio. To learn more about this print and to submit your work for consideration, please visit https://www.middlecreekpublishing.com/.
About Aaron M. Moe
He/Him/His
Aaron M. Moe is the author of the book of poems, exhalations (June, 2021), and two scholarly monographs—Ecocriticism and the Poiesis of Form: Holding on to Proteus (2019) and Zoopoetics: Animals and the Making of Poetry (2014)—along with several chapters and articles on ecopoetics / zoopoetics. In 2015, he published a leaflet of aphorisms, Protean Poetics. His creative work can also be found in Counterclaims: Poets and Poetries, Talking Back (2020) and is forthcoming in the projects The Mountain: An Anthology and The Despairimentalist Manifesto.
He and his family live near the foothills of the Colorado Rockies where they hike, climb, run trails, and write.