Two luminous bodies dash barefoot,
fearless of stepping on bumblebees,
until they reach the crooked Pine.
The sisters pause for the chime of hidden birds.
Then sing, "Oh, Chickadee!
Chickadee-in-the-tree!
Come sing with me!"

They believe in the correspondence with birds,
tiny and lucid as light bulbs.
When, each day, they chatted to a lone chickadee
perched on the battered fence, they believed
the same bird perched there yesterday.
They mimicked the songs of silk-ribbon
ravelling down limbs the squirrels scamper.
Translated their secrets into loops of euphony,
offering orange slices to the soaring spirits.

They made a mattress of grass, traced outlines
of cirrus clouds, those slender phantoms
on rivers of wind. They bit the sweet tips
of violet clovers, crushed blackberries in their palms,
rummaged their mother's garden
for strawberries and Asian pears.

With legs elongated, eyelids sewn shut,
they rhapsodized spells, pleading Chickadee
to shrink their child-bodies, bless them
into flight, as they leaped from swings.

BIO: Jessica Nash lives in Olympia, WA. She has a bachelor's degree from The Evergreen State College where she studied creative writing, literature and performance. Her poems were recently published in Poems Niederngasse, Commons Swords, On Uneven Ground and Lush. Jessica has self published a chapbook called A World of Buried Paintings. Email: jesslynne523@netzero.com