Summary

In the first stanza, the speaker intimately addresses a lover and physically places them “beneath the uncountable stars” (1). This love has caused the speaker to become delicate machinery in the beloved’s chest.

The second stanza sets the context for the poem’s central story. The speaker states that this story should not be told but that he or she will tell it anyway. In doing so, the speaker neglects “the discordant melody spilling” from his or her ears (6). The desire to tell this story is a river burning inside the speaker’s mouth. The third stanza describes the river as wanting “both purgation and to eternally sip [the lover’s] thousand / drippings” (8-9).

In the poem’s fourth and fifth stanzas, the speaker begins to tell the story. A group of neighborhood kids “spin a yarn” about an old dog named Max to...