Open-Backed Banjo

I am untroubled by serpents or the marinated feet of pigs. I bear no antipathy toward bears or the bees they bedevil, & the devil never tempts me to any evil I can’t invent on my own (forgive me if I don’t delve into the details). What makes me break down is a banjo, lonesome as our only god the clock but with two hands, both of them fast. Looking in its open back can be disconcerting: What makes it go? There’s nothing but a bare rod & the smell of rain. Where’s the balance wheel? The escapement? The gear train? It calls to me, the ghost in its machine. Play it, son! Make it ring like a hammer on steel & rattle like a Gatling gun until it smokes.