If only the little animal could
understand everything
no questions unanswered
when it dies

It does not live long enough
and flying is the time
of hundred wonderful times
of playing to die, the time

of asking again and again why
thus, this or that, and how
curiously cutting and pasting
knowledge, screaming

and throwing away angrily
lying down exhausted
and cry, but still
starting over once more

rearrange or discard
the half answers
and go looking
for new data

always ask another question
principally blind
full of confidence
that there will be an answer

As a child I crawled invisibly
away in the lower house
under the veranda
to see the rats
potter among woodlice

I felt big and strong
I pressed my lips together
against the little weak creepy cushions
and let their hard tails
whip my Gulliver body

I liked being their Atlas
under the adult world
upon my shoulders
which I separated from the earth
to keep it as it is

The music can't go

bad, so everyone enjoys --


beating his heart out.

Narcissus prefers

to play alone, with mirrors --


as his string quartet.

The girl just watches,

her parents build tall towers --


till they fall over.

The train driver is startled, and I
am not myself, my thumb
presses upon the rails

It's one of the trillions
of temporary states
of my consciousness

in which everything is allowed
and possible, in the childhood
of the universe

No you or me
how real is that?
A green door

is just art, made
from a piece of tree, exhibited
in pop-up museum earth

The girl keeps wriggling,

at her wrists and her ankles --


tossed into the sea.

I never played Hamlet,

I was just the performer --


who was playing him.

When we were children
My sister and I rejected
The role of princess.
They were pretty but weak--
Always needing to be rescued!
And we preferred the chiseled faces
The greater command of queens.
We stood on our beds at night,
Wool blankets turned to velvet capes.
And we declared our power
In broad, silly proclamations
Such as “Queen of the Dolls”!
Or Rulers of the Woods
That stretched off to the east
Of our little house,
That became a castle
Guarded by hooting owls
and Baskerville hounds.
Arms outstretched, our capes
Made leaping sparks
And we shouted in our glory.
After tiring of commands
We launched ourselves into the air
And for a moment, ruled the earth,
Suspended above our queendom
Until we fell onto our beds
And laughed with joy,
For were we not landing
On stacks of feathers,
Piled high to avoid a pea,
Laid there just for us?