Nest

by Yanita Georgieva

---

At first, I tried to tunnel
through the dirt. To pool it

into something mound-like. 
I started naming corridors.

First, the grief room. Then the safe pocket.
Like everyone, I was an earthworm 

looking for a soft patch of the world
to claim. Sometimes I am there again

grazing through the under-bloom,
my back wheel threatening to click away

at any moment. But I live
beneath the water now

and when I wriggle to the banks 
I am thankful for their depths - 

the way they let things disappear
and stay there, quiet in the dusk.

---

Yanita Georgieva is a Bulgarian journalist raised in Beirut, Lebanon. She has been living in London for the past few years, where she works for the World Service. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Alien Magazine, Luna Luna, Anti-Heroin Chic, and elsewhere.