Moral

by Tom Snarsky

 

How much electricity is there
in a sparrow’s heart, at rest
like no one, now, abetting

circulation, a thousand plus
bpm at its fastest, machine
learning how to fly and how

to die. I’ve gotta stop
putting god in these, he’s not
interested in the watch

once it’s shipped, only the putting
-together of it, the assembly
those lonely square faces

before the three black lines start
arcing around them, little
mechanical janitors

sweeping out days.
I act amazed but really I’ve seen
the trick before, I know where

the card goes, how it appears
on the other side of the window
like magic. I’ve been the assistant,

the cameraman, the gaffer.
Stolen all
that valor, crept toward death

wearing hats, how else.
The self is a Chris Fleming joke:
you have to talk and move

at the same time. Lying alone
won’t do, nor will hobbies,
poetry, gardening, the

late discovery of board games,
ornithology, ornithography
or volunteering with the wildlife

rescue. You have to be sick
and mean it, have to give
the mourning dove Patient

of the Week, have to trade
your early weak ideas
for late ones, convictions

ramified in the dark nights.

 

 

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Tom Snarsky is the author of Light-Up Swan and Reclaimed Water (Ornithopter Press), A Letter From The Mountain & Other Poems (Animal Heart Press), and MOUNTEBANK (Broken Sleep Books). His chapbook Tired Light is forthcoming from Thirty West Publishing House in October. He lives in the mountains of northwestern Virginia with his wife Kristi and their cats. Website, social media: Twitter, IG, Bluesky