A parody of Wallace Stevens

Thirteen Ways of Cooking a Blackbird
a parody

I
Among twenty boiling frying pans,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
This verse has three lines
Like a pot
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird twirled on the open spit.
It was a small part of the feast.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A blackbird and cranberry sauce
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of deep-frying
Or the beauty of casserole,
The blackbird who is whole
Or cut up in bits.

VI
An indecipherable cause
Makes me wonder,
Is the blackbird finest
In a barbaric stew
Or black
In blackbird pie?

VII
O thin King Midas,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Tastes so sweet
To the women about you?

VIII
The blackbird knows what I know
And knows his taste
Rises above other birds,
But I know he is a cannibal,
And he does not.

IX
When the blackbird’s filleted just right,
It marks the edge
Of many menus.

X
The blackbird tastes good,
Blue cheese on wheat bread,
Cheddar on rye bread,
Swiss on croissant.

XI
My dad went to Connecticut
In a glass cage.
Once, a fear strangled him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of a wren
For a blackbird.

XII
The steam is rising.
The blackbird must be dying.

XIII
It was evening all evening.
It was hailing,
And it was going to hail.
The blackbird bones
Littered our plates.

2/21/08