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is like a house
with a brain inside. Another place
where eating
and thinking
tango and spar—
At night
you lean out, releasing
thought balloons.
On the roof
someone stands ready
with a pin—
Copyright © 2019 by Dana Levin. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 1, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.
More like a basket
of twig and hair,
surprisingly
tall
and deep—
in a tree
outside my bedroom
window.
Eighth Century, Mayan
You’re supposed to say shoke but I like shock.
Lady Shock.
Who drew a spiked rope through her
offering tongue to
burn blood
into the threads of bark paper, coax
a smoke―
so she could froth up
the Vision Snake…
Mouths.
In this particular design
the Snake has two. The lower
She had a parched heart, Araneus Illaudatus.
She had a name
in her own tongue, wasn’t
a Roman Senator, wasn’t
orb-weaver
with a rocking-chair and corn-cob pipe―
What
could true her name, she was
wholly alien―
A fanged knob, body
big as my thumb―
to the first joint.
―