Let’s consider for a minute how time is built
in this green mechanical bird how slippery
as bullets the whirr of its tiny metallic brain
its tinny taloned wings its tinseled
wind-up heart so inordinately quick for this static
flapping to stay just still in flight—
How the underbelly gleam so crunching in its gunmetal
nerves & blurring on its cobalt axis
cannot keep still the brass of this stammering chassis—
What of the clockhands that creep backwards?
The whirl at the center of this whirligig
heart armored in its shivering orbit
& sweating off its bolts the fizzle
of bolts like this bird in the rubble of an after-fire
such stationary whirling, whirling
so fast in its big bird head just to stay
as all gears click & all systems go
rifle of neon to the tinny drum core—
When you get to the center nothing
but the explosion of tiny bird guts tinny bird
shrapnel descending at the speed of fine rain