Not entomology, nor some god-aping

yen for a menagerie to bend to my will

but for the blood, the lifeblood sir! It flows

through the strata of the littlest things.

I was precious

at first, reticent. So when a bee marred

itself in a clumsy descent from the window

I let it curl for days like a dried flower

before I sampled. I smiled:

it tasted liverish, autumnal.

But I was impatient; I indulged.

I rattled a flea to my ear

then popped it in my mouth like a pill.

My fingers took on the tang of a bell,

faint arcs of gore under each nail

as if I had been playing a black pudding piano.

Small viscera

hung from my gums like a piñata.

I needed self-control if I wanted the sparrows!

I began once again to propagate.

Until the day the doctor entered my cell

to find the air and my hair full of birds.

And what he conveyed, not so much in words

but a sharpening glint in his eyes was a sort of . . .

respect. I wouldn’t say awe. No, not just yet.