The Revolver in the Hive

Two Poems

Two Poems 1. The antiquarian uncovers a pendulum to a grandfather clock in a pile of typewriters, engine belts, and vacuum cleaners in the junkyard at the end of the street. A lit bulb swings across a broom closet in the laboratory where the alchemist stirs silver into the prescription vats. Upstairs, a widow uses a blue leaf as a bookmark. The electric fence hums in the dusk as the caretaker insists that the scarecrow dangles atop the tire heap because ‘‘The gawk of the magpie is a muffler rusting.’’ 2. ‘‘This pocket watch is a pathological liar,’’ thinks the old man waiting for yesterday’s train, which arrives today only a breeze through the platform. Two farmers harmonize in the town square— ‘‘Almost the crops are at the appropriate aperture.’’ A gold tooth gleaming in the sun the only evidence. The carved bell of the steeple echoes down the alley where the map-maker drafts the jagged rim of the canyon. Birds peck through puddles in the dirt road, moisture curdles into storm clouds in the far sky. 28 ...