Pamela Coren
The Hurdy-Gurdy Makes its Pitch
I bring your wooden heart,
its cogs and valves, its many voices.
One forages in the dry leaves,
sacking feet shuffling on sand and stick;
one stirs the rommelpot, the kimmel tub
in the big gut of the hollow man;
one walks a viper, swinging along,
loop left, loop right, tee-tum, tee-tum;
one screams with the love of parrots,
a high romantic with an Arabian zest;
one steals your bones, the femur
and the little toe bones: tosses them
in chorus to the reedy crows. One booms
out where the convicts swing in chains.
And yes, you are right: underneath is the truth,
humming along. I am in your hands,
all together now. We are an earquake,
a soul-ache, a tide in the bedrock.
Page(s) 60
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