PHOENIX

The impossible wall clock
of my grandfather (Dalton)
somehow doing time
lodged in the idle hall
that runs a crooked parallel
between left and right ear
its pendulum hum serving
as sway of death’s scythe
a prelude for Lilith’s lullaby

as from my Washington Heights crib
I held my mother’s yellow frying pan
like a teddy bear snug to my breast
feeling the bird as she stirred from
hollow focal point of my bird chest
eager to dive into the sulfer-bred
gulch of (yeah yeah yeah) the ninth

demense