HEART THREAD Parts Forty-One and Forty-Two

41.

Run far enough but do they listen

give them what they want and they’ll
come back

fierce dangers of getting what you
wish

these are my Moralia guide for
the oversexed

lost in the Middle Ages now
re-upholstered

in glamorous satin language America
America

I call you empty so I wade ashore

open the downturn invade the nucleus

Lincoln enthroned like an emperor

eagle talon’d held together disparate
republics

the cure almost worse than the
disease

almost and Miss Odessa’s black chess
pie.

42.

The one good thing about the Bible is
footnotes

commentaries hum like flies in the
butcher shop

every decent word breeds scores of
annotations

the simplest human sentence needs a
Mishnah of its own

and then they write that down and
before you know it

we need eight billion people on the
planet

to pronounce all the declensions of
that first verb

volo was it or nolo or gimme or I thirst

write it down as if the flowers might
forget

or Egypt turn wet again and Pharaohs shout

and mothers fret about their
adolescent sons

and Abel has a secret wife who cards
his wool.

ROBERT
KELLY