from "Nomina" by Karen Volkman

Now you nerve.  Flurred, avid as the raw
worm in the bird's throat.  It weirds the song.
The day die darkly in the ear all wrong—
all wreck, all riot—the maiden spins the straw,

the forest falters.  Night is what she saw,
in opaque increments deafening the tongue.
Sleep bird, sleep body that the silence strung,
myrrh-moon, bright maudlin, weeping as you draw

white tears, pearl iris in a net of eyes.
The spinning maiden quickens her design.
Gold gut spooling, integument of awe,

a baby breathing as a bird is wise
(the bird-bright heart that flutters like a law)
which eats the excess.  The strangle in the shine.



Source of the text - Karen Volkman, Nomina.  Rochester, NY: Boa Editions, Ltd., 2008, p. 33.

TJB:  Superterse, every phrase is gold in this alliterated Petrarchan bird-eye-song sonnet where the chick from Rumpelstiltskin spins gold herself.