nests

[tectak]

NESTS  (revision 1)

When your home backs up to an alley On to, not up to...otherwise it sounds as if your alley is in reverse gear.It still does.
and the flowering trees are bare,
you can’t help but notice dumpsters
are a regular hardware store for resident birds. I have an image. Good, but last line overhangs and jutties its confounded base. It is overstretched by regular and resident

Above the rot, their bodies rise and swoop,   Well, yes and no. Their bodies? "they", surely.To have "bodies" and "dead" in such close proximity pulls the reader up. Further, "above" is unachievable without rising so you may feel that there is excess baggage in the line anyway. Let's see, they are in free air above the rot...Above the rot they swoop and swirl/twist/ dive/flutter...your poem.
a flurry of life throughout the dead Clumsy unforced enjambment. You have no rhyme nor meter to worry you so why split dead and cold? Read it out loud with the enjambment. Is it sensibly undetectable? No. It sound wrong so it is wrong. Rearrange. You know how. Try always to make the last word on an enjambed line predict, to some degree, the next word.
This is an example only...but you might get the idea:

a flurry of life in the dead cold of winter,
before the last tenacious ice
melts on to warming asphalt.

cold of winter, before the last ice
finally melts onto the asphalt.  

Before green pokes through gray Ditto. What rule are you using for this crazy enjambment?
cracks, beaks pluck loose burlap and twine,
the warp and weft woven into evergreens
across from second story windows.

We warm and feather our nests too,
scavenge stores and farm-field antique markets
for Pima cotton bed sheets, down-filled couches,
vintage mirrors.

Now that crabapple blossoms screen the alley
view, we open windows, emerge
like tulips breaking ground into the spring air,
and sing in concert with the birds' joyful arias.
Hi anne,
Much tighter.
Good egg,
tectak
*

Nests

Outside the back window, across the alley
the food coop’s blue recycle barrels
loaded with knocked-down materials
are a regular Home Depot
for the local birds.

Flying and swooping above the rot
and decay, they were a flurry of life
throughout the dead cold of winter
before the last of dropped freezer truck ice
had finally melted into the asphalt.

Before green began poking through the gray cement
cracks, their beaks plucked loose
burlap and twine from the piles,
the warp and weft woven into arborvitaes
across from second story windows.

To warm and feather our homes,
we humans scavenge too,
from West Elm to farm field flea markets
for the smoothest bed sheets, the comfiest couch,
a vintage mirror.

Now that the Flowering Crabapple blossoms
block the alley view, we open windows and peek out
from our cozy creations, smell the spring air
and join the birds chirping
in concert with the tulips breaking ground.