The Ambition Bird

So it has come to this — / insomnia at 3:15 a.m., / the clock tolling its engine / like a frog following / a sundial yet having an electric / seizure at the quarter hour. // The business of words keeps me awake. / I am drinking cocoa, / that warm brown mama. // I would like a simple life / yet all night I am laying / poems away in a long box. // It is my immortality box, / my lay-away plan, / my coffin. // All night dark wings / flopping in my heart. / Each an ambition bird. // The bird wants to be dropped / from a high place like Tallahatchie Bridge. // He wants to light a kitchen match / and immolate himself. // He wants to fly into the hand of Michelangelo / and dome out painted on a ceiling. // He wants to pierce the hornet’s nest / and come out with a long godhead. // He wants to take bread and wine / and bring forth a man happily floating in the Caribbean. // He wants to be pressed out like a key / so he can unlock the Magi. // He wants to take leave among strangers / passing out bits of his heart like hors d’oeuvres. // He wants to die changing his clothes / and bolt for the sun like a diamond. // He wants, I want. / Dear God, wouldn’t it be / good enough to just drink cocoa? // I must get a new bird / and a new immortality box. / There is folly enough inside this one.