Teapot of butter

Guides at hand sowing the pretty tongue

all out of breath with an Amazon’s rod

the baby mountain picks up fifty cents

in the garden leech anemone

fallen from a postcard ladder.

The leatherbelted salad brake

orange in hand breathes on the vestments

of the pastry cook who harvests the grapes at the hospital

from the flag to the penny pole.

We are in the blackbirds’ granary

where the friendly spider carries pips

looking tired amid the vast liquor

of waistcoats all gnawing worms.

Flitting in air a caterpillar’s feast

is the risk of a tin paradise

hung from the top of the chimney.

Francis Picabia