The Sound of Music

There was once a time
When the concern was not
About feelings being hurt
But rather their collecting.
Wordsworth would lead you to his parlor
And with a sweeping gesture
Delight you with all his feelings amassed
In clean glass cases like intricate butterfly wings.
Oil paintings and photographs
Yellowing cracking and fading in your lifetime
But your mother keeps the urns in her closet
Of your first puppy
In which you should dig your nose;
These feelings that smell unfamiliar
But write the secrets of your blood.

Poachers kill feelings;
They write magazines and books.

I do not live in New York
But if you come I will
Take you on a tour of Wordsworth’s feelings
At the Museum of Natural History.
The dog bite display is not so different
From the whiskers and kittens exhibit
As with William’s orange juice
In which extra pulp was added
“And pulp,” he said,
“Is allowing feelings to be hurt,
And the more cushy”
Life becomes the worse
Our bulimia becomes and our girlfriends
Are great first Impressionists with warm smiles
That wrap us up just like the crazy they hide
But I’ll remind you
That all walls, edges, and sharp corners
Are equally padded.

Just before the Precambrian room
I can see his happiness
A pen a pad and some tinsel
“The actual thing is what you see
And not a rear view mirror
Image. If I wanted a replica
I would have left a book
Of poetry or stolen toilet paper”
Read the worn marker
Surely left by him himself.
The rest moves past
Like a storybook in a breeze
As if William were puling you
By the most ironic part
Of your shirt sleeve
Then he stopped
Before you got to the wooly mammoth
And said “let me prick your hand
With my pocket knife”
And
“Yes it will sting but not
Like a bee because you aren’t
That lucky to be getting a natural
Experience for we are
Indoors and they didn’t have
Air conditioning back when I lived
In the Upper East Side”
And
“If you let me prick you
I’ll pay your way
On the Coney Island Ferris wheel”
But he had already done it
And later when I watched
The city lights
He was gone again
Just like he always was
And my hand was bleeding
“Just in the shape of
Orion’s belt on
A Wednesday evening.”
We laughed together
And then stillness that was…

The last thought before my brainstem
Is wishbone broke
Is nothing but a snow filled mountainside
With just the idea of myself and
A breeze that is like third grade November
When I only knew few things so I listened to the breeze.
The snow is cold and with no food for days
My bony ribs could be a pretty girl’s.
I imagine birds chirping and the sun and silence
Are a perfect finish for my display case.