Someone said hurdy gurdy heart
so of course I thought accordion heart,
vuvuzela heart, calliope heart.

Hello, heart, I say as it knocks
on my door.  What have you been
up to? Oh nothing much, says
heart, achingly.

We have broken much together,
heart and I, and yet we still
do not know each other
very well. I offer my kazoo.

Heart declines. Pulls out
a blues harp, says,
shut up them damn birds,
I got something to say.

---

Kyla Houbolt is a poet and gardener living in North Carolina, USA. “Shopping Music for the Gods” will appear in her full-length selected and new poems, Becoming Altar, forthcoming from Subpress in autumn 2025.