Theodore Worozbyt

Stirrup and Anvil

I think my hummingbird has a transistor
Radio in its heart, that it’s turquoise, and
Picks up all the marbles from the garden,
To pile them along the windowsill
As though such things ripen. His spider
Thread tongue shines, sugar-glazed
As he drinks from the feeder.
Where best to wrap an Ace bandage
Is not an illegitimate question, if it’s quiet,
Quiet as your brother by the pool
With one smile. I stand in the sun
Turned brown by the smell of chlorine.
The ice thunkles in the round orange
Plastic cup that has, on its surface,
The dimples of an orange, and leaves
And orange vines, though oranges
Do not have holes for drinking.
There is something I am not telling
Myself that seems nearly a taste
With no flavor, but somewhere
In there are pumpkins, vines, vials
I pretend I still have from the burned
House where the black racer flashed
Once through the tall dry grass
And the dog’s heart burst bright scarlet
On the black of Cossawattee Drive,
And I carried home a clutch of glass
Necks to hide. I thought of them
As the medicine, though they were old.
The shoulder skin of a box turtle is so
Softly dry…there is a human place
Like that. It is not wanting. We looked
Through mother’s things, as though they,
Under the correct sun, might melt and
Become twin lenses. Where is the secret
To the moon bottle, and why white
Gloves on the men and women both?
Before the storm smells like a gun
Has been shot, just once, and then
Like many. The peonies that I didn’t
Plant jowel out and hang in that
Year’s spring as though my head would
Stare itself under grass. These hoists
Passing themselves off as singing
Bubbles of the heart? Well now,
I’m not, and you’re not, that unselfish.
A safety pin is not safe inside itself,
The screen is made of space not wire,
And no knife ever unfolded alone.
Those aren’t knives in your hands, was said
To the man setting his beard on fire. And:
But don’t sit at the edges of tall buildings,
It might seem wrong, as though you’d
Jumped. I am not going to say,
Here is a small round screen, go
Have a dog with it, bet on big pancakes,
Delectate your teeth edges against cheap
Beluga caviar. Oh sure, they used to ask
My name in that cave sometimes and I
Knew the bartenders, one by drink alone,
Her hair was gin-colored. O father, why
Have I forsaken you? I forgot to change
The liquid sugar during this twilit afterward
And so the cold soaked hummingbirds can’t
Fuel their peppercorn hearts. I have more
Nutmegs in the silver-capped bottle
You gave me than I will use in the
Course of my life. These birds, tiny
And fierce, their chests puff smaller
Than one nutmeg. A static that
Comes in through the swaying green
Wall over and over and into the oaks,
All six, seems less friendly to the wind
Than whoah, the long flutey fart my pit
Bull just puttered along the woven
Symbols of the Hamedan carpet
Where he curls like my hand in sleep,
A gray-bearded brindle lima bean.
He is not the beautiful error
His eye grows too weak to find.
Nor does his comma cover it.
In another room where we will go
Six jars of green peas are split
And dry but fresh as cream.
The rice and beans, too, seem
Especially mine in this cool
Cleaned house tonight.
Outside something is going on.
It’s hard to say what it is. Either
Two men are talking to each other.
Or one man is talking to himself.

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