Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Mind poised at
the tipping point
in a fantasy of perpetual motion,
I’m that old-fashioned toy,
a wooden bird hinged
at the hips that bends
again & again into
the undiminished fuel
of its reflection.
Last week, I saw
the sun in the surface
of a bog: it bubbled.
It trilled like a toad.
The alchemists
would be pleased, mercury
now lurks nearly everywhere.
Its needle threads the eye
of mother’s milk,
quicksilver fin & feather,
heron legs. Extract
of death, let us dance.
Let our bones be honey-
combed with shards
of mirror. Top-heavy,
wedded to my rituals,
I keep thinking
that’s it, & then
just one more.