Rousing the Machinery

     The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.

—William Blake

i

Observe the perpetual boy, as one

with the pop-eyed crowd. He’s come to see

the King’s menagerie: camel, bear

leopard, lion, tyger—stripe over stripe,

swinging its heavy head, with each sullen step.

He notes the gold globe of its pupil,

the eyes’ bulge and slow blink. Who will extol

this captive, pacing the round tower

room? Who will grind its bones for luck, pluck

stiff whiskers for a paintbrush, rend fat

for an aphrodisiac? Who will inhale

scent of musk, tang of urine

soaked in stone, sing marvelous, its assets?

The boy?

ii

This morning in Raleigh’s exurban flank,

I watch the bad boys of Selma

Alternative High School craft paper wasps.

They loft them across the bedlam

of the classroom to where the tyger, perfect-

bound, sleeps soundly in my hands. With a stroke,

a stroke, a stroke, the machinery is roused

and in the northeast corner of the classroom,

above our heads, gangly wasps disgorge wood to make

paper. Take aim: the miracle occurs

in a vessel, an enclosure, in a lidded pot

on a hot stove, in a woman’s body

where a child grows, or in the insect

jaw, ganglia, and lobe.