Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser

The Wren in the Lilac Cycles through Its Songs at Breakneck Speed

[71] THE WREN IN THE LIL AC CYCLES THROUGH ITS SONGS AT BREAKNECK SPEED— And why not sing? And why not burn a track from the tinder of the branch to the furnace of noon? The maw of that which will devour us all, that gapes beyond apartments and old strip malls; the rusted iron gates over which the neighbor’s ivy creeps, unpeopled mansions built on mountaintops exposed, tracts of sand over which armies of boots grind children’s bones to dust—And why not empty all the vessels of the throat, the glittering receptacles of blood; and why not break the hundred glasses in the room with the sharpest facets of that joy, that long-lost twin of sorrow? Hurry through one more refrain, as if it were the thread in the labyrinth that could save you. ...