Then-- this is just called "Some Stories."
This is really one prose poem, but it's a whole group
of little tiny stories.
And the idea I had is that stories evolve
and the stories which we now think are about robins
were once about something else.
"Some Stories."
"The story of the shepherd's crook
was once the story of an impotent man.
Now his sperm are sheep.
He wanted them to go so he said to them again and again
until it became a song.
This time, I am serious.
The story of the beggar and his hat
was once the story of someone's belly.
The rich man, who thinks the beggar is blind,
pours cream over the money in the hat.
And now the beggars curse is called a heart attack.
The egg yolks smear in the blood like oil slicks, butter,
oysters.
I don't want to spoil the story for you,
maybe you know it anyhow, but the beggar was not blind.
Some scholars think that the phrase the mind's eye refers
to the navel and this story is crucial to their argument.
The story of the stupid son was once the story
of someone's hand, possibly a weaver's.
The thumb was the runt of the litter, the deck,
the nestle-tripe, the squeaker.
In those days, all such stories were about males
but maybe the thumb is really a daughter
with four taller brothers.
And when she bakes for them, and kneads the dough,
and places the long loaf in the warm oven,
the threads of blood in her hands glow.
The last story was the tongues before it was the gravestones.
It's like no story you've ever heard.
Nothing happens.
You sit, and after a time, you realize
you've hardly moved any more than grass
at a gravesite moves except when bent by insect traffic.
You wait.
You grow darker.
The story is happening to you now, you realize.
It's amazing.
It's the greatest story ever told."