"The Way the Parrot Learns

I’m afraid to talk to you about my little toe,
Because I know that it will never agree to fasting.
The only ally I have is the sole of my foot.
We all live close to our greedy souls.
We have inherited so many longings
That in the other world our name is “So Many.”
One teaspoon of envy was enough for me
To attack Robert Lowell; with a tablespoon
I could have taken on Henry James and Abelard.
Trainers once placed a parrot before a mirror,
And a man behind. The parrot, assuming
A parrot was speaking, would learn to talk.
Perhaps if God would put up a mirror
And sit behind it, and talk, I could believe
That those words of mercy were coming from me.
Why should the rooster go over every detail
Of his beheading? Let’s leave some darkness
Around those days when danced in the road."
— Robert Bly (The Night Abraham Called to the Stars: Poems)