{"id":1608,"date":"2018-01-15T08:00:45","date_gmt":"2018-01-15T15:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/?p=1608"},"modified":"2018-01-10T13:58:47","modified_gmt":"2018-01-10T20:58:47","slug":"1608","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/?p=1608","title":{"rendered":"How to Become Invulnerable by Sandi Leibowitz"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Find a hummingbird whose emerald wings
\nthrum like your lost lover\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s heartbeat.
\nWait three springs, or four, or eight,
\ntill she hatches an egg the color of the sky
\non your last happy day.<\/p>\n

Break it in two
\nwith a ruby-hilted sword.
\nSuck and savor
\nwhat would have been a bird;
\nthis makes you stronger,
\nable to give up
\nwhat you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve cradled and coddled all your life.
\nYou no longer need it, not really.
\nYou\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re better off keeping it hidden,
\nand it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s better off, too;
\nyou tell it that as it resists your
\nministrations.<\/p>\n

Insert the precious quivering thing
\nsafe inside the egg.
\nIgnore the wild fluttering as it struggles
\nto break free.<\/p>\n

Seal the egg with a locking spell
\ntill the seam is invisible
\nand looks for all the world
\nlike something that might still become.<\/p>\n

Thrust the egg inside a ring-dove\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s throat.
\nForce a fox to swallow the dove whole.
\nNever mind its pleading eyes.
\nShove the fox into a silver casket
\nlocked with a golden lock
\nwhose key you down with a goblet of burgundy.<\/p>\n

Round and round the casket wrap iron chains
\ninsistent as seaweed wreathing a drowned man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s legs.
\nThe fox in its prison may cry and yelp
\nbut you will pretend
\nnot to hear.
\nYou don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean to be cruel;
\nit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just the way things are.<\/p>\n

Journey north to where the maps
\nsay the world ends
\nor south to where all tales began,
\nit makes no difference;
\nit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the distance that counts.
\nWhen you find a ship, take it;
\nit knows where to go.<\/p>\n

Once you are far from the seven continents,
\nbeyond the isles of pestilence,
\nwhere the sails die for want of wind,
\nyou\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll know you have arrived.<\/p>\n

Dive
\nseven leagues down,
\nocean above you weighty as eternity,
\nto darkness so black
\nthe whales fear it.
\nThere in the sand,
\nwhere even the sharks won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see,
\nbury the casket.<\/p>\n

Swim back up.
\nSail the world,
\nbuild a fortress,
\ndestroy a city,
\nas you wish.<\/p>\n

Now, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll think,
\nyou will be safe forever,
\nnothing will ever hurt you again.<\/p>\n

But someday you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll hear chains burst,
\na fox cresting the waves,
\nthe beating of a ring-dove\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wings,
\nthe crack of an egg.<\/p>\n

Illustration is Orchids and Spray Orchids with Hummingbird by MJ Head<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Find a hummingbird whose emerald wings thrum like your lost lover\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s heartbeat. Wait three springs, or four, or eight, till she hatches an egg the color of the sky on your last happy day. Break it in two with a ruby-hilted sword. Suck and savor what would have been a bird; this makes you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1608"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1610,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608\/revisions\/1610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}