what bird would nest?

by Tom McDade

Just past a dead

Streetlight a wild

Dark evergreen

Eerily like an alien

Robot in darkness, fog

Or my failing eyesight

Is nearly round and juts

Out abutting the sidewalk

But its roots have yet

To crack the asphalt

Making walking risky

As other specimens have

Ants are drawn to

Those fissures to build

Perfectly constructed

In harm’s way hills

Today a possum lies

Dead as if the monster

Had scared it to death

Or caused a driver

To accelerate

Instead of slowing

Or braking

Skunks, deer, foxes

And raccoons have

Also been sacrificed

At that tree’s altar

And the Inquisitions

Of moon scythes

And wind clippers

Have run out

Of answers

Photo of Thomas McDade

BIO: Thomas M. McDade is a 79 year old resident of Fredericksburg, VA, formerly CT and RI. He is a graduate of Fairfield University. McDade is twice a U.S. Navy Veteran serving ashore at the Fleet Anti-Air Warfare Training Center, Dam Neck Virginia Beach, VA and aboard the USS Mullinnix (DD-944) and USS Miller (DE / FF-1091). His fiction has most recently appeared in The Paradox Literary Magazine.