Claire Nicholson

NESTING

Every night & every morning 
I weave & unweave
a blanket of all the manifestations
I want to hold close. I wish 
upon comets & airplanes 
& fireflies fluttering indoors. 
I hang garlands made of twisted 
fortunes cracked
from crisp moons and  
strands of goodluck 
—beads & babyteeth & brightstones.
For warmth I keep caches of eyelashes
& melted stubs of birthday candles, 
thick & ashy. I squirrel away 
clumps of tealeaves
hoping they 
meant something,
mean something. 
Papercranes roost in my garden
in nests of loose buttons, bronze keys, pieces
of red seaglass. 
I rub
my skin with flowers
& place fourleaf clovers 
under my tongue. 
I collect jars of seawater & sunlight 
& bluesky & warm 
carnival laughter. 
I know the currency of dreams—
I pay my way with silver 
coins & glass fishbowls 
filled with twodollar bills 
& I like to gnaw 
on foundpennies,
tasting copper
thrown into fountains & lying 
lonely in the street. 
I hoard talismans, 
trinkets, & torn 
pages of poetry like 
scripture & I sleep on a mattress
stuffed with shreds of horoscopes 
& birthcharts, believing 
in the permanence of stars. 

Claire Nicholson (she/her) currently lives in Maine, where she was born. She is a graduate of Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. She enjoys plants, bagels, and ultimate frisbee. Nicholson has previously been published in Gone Lawn and will be published in the upcoming issue of the Sierra Nevada Review. You can find her on Twitter @claire2n. Other publications credits include Asterism: An Undergraduate Literary Journal and the Modern Poetry Quarterly Review.