I’m in the produce
aisle and the local
fortune teller is

hurling strawberries
at me, as she yells,
Wake up, we’re in for

a wild ride and we
won’t be the same
when it’s over! Then

she charges toward
me, nearly knocks me
over and gives me an

electrified kiss. This
is the time when
peasants harvested

wild strawberries, she
says, then laughs like
a broken church bell.

Listen and
Silent have

The same
Letters.

What’s up
With that?

I am assembling
a new gray tweed
suit. The plodding,

solitary elephant is
wandering on a dark
road. I am not an I.

Pinocchio is missing
an arm and speeding
in a big truck. I am

an eye that floats
overhead, smaller
than a pin-point,

nothing really.
In the murky
night Pinocchio

hurtles toward the
idle elephant, but
swerves at the last

moment, then I’m
wearing the tweed
suit, even though

it’s missing a
sleeve, and all three
of its ivory buttons.

The room is empty
except for an egg

sitting on a chair
in the passing sun.

In the foreground, a
child’s marble, made of
clear glass, incandescent,
aglow with blue and
green streaks and swirls,
on a table cloth the color
of the ocean on a
bright day, and in the
background, a window,
the inky night sky, the
luminous but gray moon,
smaller than the marble,
flat, distant, and in
the glass, an adult’s
face faintly reflected,
small, ghost-like, colorless,
embedded in the
starless black space.

Who knew there
are so many
poets—lurking

in the shadows,
walking in the
sunlight, running

naked on the
beach, or sleeping
in defunct malls?

The wind-up
clock chimes

from the other
room. On the

wall, a painting
of a landscape

five-thousand
miles away.

The room
illuminated

by lamp-light,
as if it were

the middle of a
long dark night.