It’s always a story of hearts
caged in bone, and how they
converse between bars like branches

of weeping willows. It begins when
they pull out their dusty dictionaries
and redefine themselves so their names

become synonyms, and how they flip
their pencils over to press pink
erasers against yellowed pages,

to rub out the line dividing reality
and daydream.  Next comes a ceaseless
cycle of rise and fall, and how lungs

methodically beat themselves against
chest walls with every sustaining breath.
Then it’s an abrupt lurch of

limbs, and how feet must find
new anchor when the rug is pulled out
from beneath them. It seldom ends

at happily ever after,
and most stories never bubble
over into the easy resolution

of *epilogue.