Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Duck

          Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Duck

          By Nathaniel Hellerstein

After Wallace Stevens

1.

Among sixteen stinky swamps

The only quacking thing

Was the beak of the duck.

2.

I had three opinions,

Like a pond

With three ducks upended.

3.

The duck flew through the spring sky.

It was a small part of the parody.

4.

A man and a woman

Are two.

A man and a woman and a duck

Are three.

5.

I do not know which is worse,

The humor of inflictions

Or the humor of innuendoes,

The duck quacking

Or just after.

6.

Zephyrs riffled the river

With civilized silk.

The beak of the duck

Bobbed it, up and down.

The mood

Drew from the ducking

An explicit effect.

7.

O fat bears of Frisco,

Why do you imagine black birds?

Do you not see how the duck

Waddles around the feet

Of the gays about you?

8.

I know bogus antics

And crazy, incredible timing;

But I know, too,

That the duck is involved

In what I know.

9.

When the duck plummeted to the ground,

It marked the edge

Of one of many squares.

10.

At the sight of ducks

Flying through strobe light,

Even the bards of dissonance

Would giggle giddily.

11.

He drove around Kankakee

In a rusty rental.

Once, a laugh gaffed him,

In that he mistook

The reflection of his ride

For ducks.

12.

The wind is blowing.

The duck must be diving.

13.

It was dawn all day.

It was raining

And it was going to rain.

The duck paddled

In the lily-pond.