Plucking Swans, and: The Way Forward Begins with Gratitude

138 Who looks into a marble and finds a code like Hammurabi’s? We do. So why can’t we pluck fast enough? Milky with fragrance, a stairway of swans. Each swan decanting the autumn, wet feathers rimmed by frost, a concussion of quills spraying into the fountain. And even here at the mirror a swan dangles, revenge on nature and art. You’re breathing in needle clouds. It’s sharper and sharper in your lungs. You will not make the past work. Everywhere you look is down. Why are you tearing at your own arms now? Watch it. Your head is in that one’s mouth. I think he’s choking with you. PLUCKING SWANS LEE UPTON 139 LEE UPTON THE WAY FORWARD BEGINS WITH GRATITUDE I can’t read the devil’s handwriting on this contract, can you? His penmanship, all forks. No thanks. No thanks to you and your whiskey. No thanks. The shark’s world or the saint’s? No thanks. Look. The Picts and the Huns arrived at last-thanks to you and your whiskey. Now your cow is in the corn. You can blow your horn, but she’ll shred the flags of a thousand countries. She thinks she’s Marcus Aurelius mowing barbarians down. She’s bloating, and she won’t budge. That’s the way I feel about libraries. Thanks. The rhinoceros thinks she’s a hippo equipped for war. No thanks. No thanks to you and your whiskey. They say the more you drink the thirstier your thinking. Half the time I love actors. Half the time I pretend to. I auditioned but landed in the crew. No thanks. No thanks to you and your whiskey. 140 Did you make your whiskey at home in a tank? Let’s make your throat raw with an incredible thirst. Everybody should have an education that doesn’t involve a strip search. ...