A SWAN
Image generated using AI. Edited.
a swan a swan
a silver swan automaton articulates
articulates a remove from time tells time
itself mechanical fool
proof at 2 pm in the provincial
museum, the dial
daily wound for the swan’s bath
streams in flashing glass the pinned tune
and little fish likewise with levers
moved zip under-over a motion to water
the mind vacuums nearer no farther
what it has come for, what it is
on view archival jewel, syncopate tower
radial queue clouded
remove, the silver throat of silver
swan reeling on
the proxy calm of the waters , of the waters
on the face "a living
grace about his movement, a living
intelligence in his eye" of strass and paste
board gem semisphere it presents
half a rapid mirror scaling back in a second’s
glancing at an i the eye bit’s inner surface
holds in, occludes with glue the future
seen thro antireflective sheets of glass
lcd browser i tab not close to piled cams
that convert spin to lineation grate with semi-ancient
water damage the permeated hollow head
the chug of mind, the chore of mind its "exact
replica" of the female mute one year to produce
children in an arcade who purchase access to
merlin’s vertebrae rising via roller and spring
filed pin, riveted links of the fusee of the fusee
gear operatory "perhaps no problem
in mechanics ever solved so simply and so perfectly"
as the conic pulley of thee fusee
the original chains of the made by
children ages 9 8 7 "whose hands were small
enough" and those of their mothers remain
the original chains the living hand
to wind "who living had no" note
young mothers linking
when this mechanistic swan glitz outlives me whose
bird’s will i be what will i cede
shit’s in iota and work what will i
iota unwinding the original chains of being
the time 2 o nothing the reasonable
fee, the docent opposing key rachet to mainspring
teeth to touch undo "the swan is on the move"
"no sense of touch it has no brain"
glorious legerdemain
bill eased athwart back patters at a single solid
feather massed auto preen flap flap
no consideration of lack of appetite the swan
is figured on substanceless it scuds to
crystal curve, the bars that churn the glass skewer
cascade of the till turn the water curb
lifts its mock fish, shining ifs
exhibit ifs, which nod and whir and in certain
centuries, states of repair "sporting about
scatter " when swan darts surface, bill
encroaches, throat opens o spin-y scrim unexceptional
ifs wish into rictus desire mechanic avidity
fix jaw twitch flash gullet end of exhibit
sleight of life no secret to hide ifs "born in
a morass" u silver fish
wired in an silver mouth reeling in
and out of time told by small hands closing
the coil century by century others scatter
over those of an effort small enough still a swan
a swan whose swan thee everlastingsly
whose swan who’s swan’s i was
Alyssa Perry's writing appears in Annulet: A Journal of Poetics, The Canary, Cleveland Review of Books, Fence, and other journals. She is an editor at Rescue Press and teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Perry was recently an artist-in-residence at the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago.