Wonders of Classification
got the talons and beaks of birds. got the skin the dried skin the
withered wrapping tissue of weasel and lemming.
the teeth of wolves. got the slight scales of fish.
small devils on a strap, the stripped relics,
the talon caring kit in the belt
of the man from the River of Men, the
caribou feller. They protect you more
the further they have come to find you: the seal tooth
deep in forest country.
The concretion of surprise. the lesson objects. the
precious clutches. a raritätenkabinett a
tradescant hutch. a place privy to
slight retrievals. Annular
felled anno 1565, Kentner's
gallery in a hutch where fossils
eggs, minerals and bones
return like artificial memory
drawing to light the analogical series
but qualified by paradox.
Re-animators
shackling;
galvanic corpse-tensors
Judgment Day trick riggers
deploying cadaver vertebrae
in brisk paces
in the cabinet of Kensington
arpeggio of ichthyosaur phalanges
copied and attenuated to
palpable, papillar zero.
a tray of bird's legs rowed
to speak, and expound their structure.
Small coups for the acquisition of a body
counting one, two, three
missing a limb, and failing the test of pattern
returning to the lashing surf again.
fin fling. tetrapod matrix.
seizing an opacity of bone
freezing a rapacity of calcium
clenching the wayward rushes in steady edges
slot spine from skittering discs
the minor coin of moving parts
harnessed to cartilage
hoops of tension
stilled as bearing stanchions;
a theoretical set of curves, catenary
reared as monumental armature.
My hand dripping with a shelf of dredge
Why acquire sensations?
Why nuance them? What
tariff of preciosities? a clutch. a nerved interior.
a keeping where I rack the notions.
Lhotsky's keeper chest with
The entry rolls of Schloss Ambras taped up,
where one copy of every strange thing fetches up,
cabinet mania to frustrate a brother.
a set of fitting rows they violate,
a hardened paradox, a seizure from the time
of monsters.
a sssss ev everl pecial zyll
ver a llll a ser a ver a llll a ser a ver
a series of several special syllables
the names of organs that don't exist yet.
Gambas suras femoralia
capitali centro cartilagini.
A drip swelling to a sheet
a flexible plane flaring as a wrapper
restating a hole as an inside.
The falls of sensation, the contact sheets
in mill where the dissolution of the world
sifts out a schema clear as a blush
in swirls of pourable white powder
and soft folds for the linen drawer.
Water, silver, milk, and so on
a set of serial surfaces, mirroring folds of tissue
to shake and bell and nestle
new cloth that flatters both shoulders
the star-robe with its flowering of separate lights.
The burial at Maglehøj or Muckle How
where she assembled objects
in her pouch, loose distinctive parts
of birds and lynxes
to draw down the power of flight, or
run at speed by night, or
renew the flocks of wild things after winter.
Some vertebrae from a snake
A piece of a bird's windpipe
or the finely sidling-bones of a weasel.
From far and wide to close and tight
objects glowing with virtue
fatally uttered
in the classic and enclosing pattern,
the populated stanza.
Page(s) 19-21
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