Cleaning the birdhouse

So many things
A mother can’t explain—

how a toad
gets down a wire

into a birdhouse,
why it wants

to be there and
about the one

pale blue egg
that falls, too,

onto the dry
August grass.

Lynn Pattison’s poems have appeared in The Notre Dame Review, Rhino, Atlanta Review, Harpur Palate, Rattle and Poetry East, among others, and been anthologized in several venues. Nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, she is the author of three collections: tesla's daughter (March St. Press, 2005); Walking Back the Cat (Bright Hill Press, 2006) and Light That Sounds Like Breaking (Mayapple Press, 2006). In past years, Pattison was awarded an Irving S. Gilmore Emerging Artist Grant through the local branch of the Michigan Arts Council, and a writing residency at the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest IL. She lives and writes in Michigan.