Sandbox constructs, talk to me.
Play to me.
Dancing straw, pull on the wind,
give color and shape, give name.
I will be straw too one time, then many times,
and will dance with the straw in the wind.
These are joyful times, all alone, no interference. No you.

Mouse you sneaks in the sandbox,
chews on my straw and nests in my sand.
In possession of some key.

(I want to ask about the key, but I can’t.
I am supposed to be made of straw.)

Perturbed, I chase you out.
My world of sand and straw is too fragile for your beating heart.
It will fall apart, will be rubbed raw and threadbare.
But you sneak in again,
and look at me as if I am not straw,
and the ground as if it is not sand
but solid earth, rich and full.

Clearing the board I start over.
Drive you out
and begin to map out the pattern of this cloth.
Time begins to unspool, following its slow track.
Joyful in this beginning, this gradual awakening.
Patience.
Humility.

I never know when (or if) you’re going to appear.
So often the game plays out without a hitch,
or you appear so late that it makes no difference.
But I hear your heartbeat now: the rapid thudding,
and know you are here.
A mouse nuzzling through the straw,
invading the gentle morning of this world
when all may be ruined, all may be averted.

Bold, undisguised you,
and I, perfect shaft of damp straw;
it does not fool you.
Discovered at the worst moment,
tender and caught.
You, unruffled by the wind, realizing the position you’re in.
Realizing the position I’m in:
holding all the keys but unprepared to use them.

You have your own plans and ideas.
You dance around me,
playing provocateur, trying to make me
show my hand, my key.
I pretend I don’t know what you’re up to.
I hope you lose interest and give up.
Hope a chance wind sweeps you up,
like a great swell from the sea,
and I never see you again.
Hope you suddenly doubt yourself, blinking,
finally convinced by my damp posing,
my mute bafflement and loyalty to the wind
and wonder, isn’t this straw?

Dare I play your game?
Dare I nod to your tune?

I use one of my keys.
Walk through a door that shouldn’t open,
you at my heels, all eager to see backstage,
to see the actor who plays me.

You already know what you have known since you saw my face.
The same face you have seen dancing in and out
of pale replicas of borrowed worlds.

And finally I let you hear from my lips
what you have suspected the whole time.
That I am not the straw or the sand or even the wind.
That I know you aren’t either.
That I know that you know.
That yes, it was a character and it was a role.
That it was a game I play, usually alone.

“It was just for light fun and idle amusement,” I say.
“Nothing was at stake.
So why the sabotage?”

Then, in spite of our twin hearts,
I see how different you are from me.
What calms me enrages you.
What worries me soothes you.
What I call “light fun and idle amusement”
you call “life and death.”
“Everything was at stake,” you say.
You say, “this world is full, full to the brim. People just like you.”

Fool.
Don’t you realize where you are?
Look around, it is a world of sand and straw
blowing in the wind.

Inside many of us
is a small old man
who wants to get out.
No bigger than a two-year-old
whom you'd call lamb chop
yet this one is old and malformed.
His head is okay
but the rest of him wasn't Sanforized?
He is a monster of despair.
He is all decay.
He speaks up as tiny as an earphone
with Truman's asexual voice:
I am your dwarf.
I am the enemy within.
I am the boss of your dreams.
No. I am not the law in your mind,
the grandfather of watchfulness.
I am the law of your members,
the kindred of blackness and impulse.
See. Your hand shakes.
It is not palsy or *****.
It is your Doppelganger
trying to get out.
Beware . . . Beware . . .

There once was a miller
with a daughter as lovely as a grape.
He told the king that she could
spin gold out of common straw.
The king summoned the girl
and locked her in a room full of straw
and told her to spin it into gold
or she would die like a criminal.
Poor grape with no one to pick.
Luscious and round and sleek.
Poor thing.
To die and never see Brooklyn.

She wept,
of course, huge aquamarine tears.
The door opened and in popped a dwarf.
He was as ugly as a wart.
Little thing, what are you? she cried.
With his tiny no-*** voice he replied:
I am a dwarf.
I have been exhibited on Bond Street
and no child will ever call me Papa.
I have no private life.
If I'm in my cups the whole town knows by breakfast
and no child will ever call me Papa
I am eighteen inches high.
I am no bigger than a partridge.
I am your evil eye
and no child will ever call me Papa.
Stop this Papa foolishness,
she cried. Can you perhaps
spin straw into gold?
Yes indeed, he said,
that I can do.
He spun the straw into gold
and she gave him her necklace
as a small reward.
When the king saw what she had done
he put her in a bigger room of straw
and threatened death once more.
Again she cried.
Again the dwarf came.
Again he spun the straw into gold.
She gave him her ring
as a small reward.
The king put her in an even bigger room
but this time he promised
to marry her if she succeeded.
Again she cried.
Again the dwarf came.
But she had nothing to give him.
Without a reward the dwarf would not spin.
He was on the scent of something bigger.
He was a regular bird dog.
Give me your first-born
and I will spin.
She thought: Piffle!
He is a silly little man.
And so she agreed.
So he did the trick.
Gold as good as Fort Knox.

The king married her
and within a year
a son was born.
He was like most new babies,
as ugly as an artichoke
but the queen thought him in pearl.
She gave him her dumb lactation,
delicate, trembling, hidden,
warm, etc.
And then the dwarf appeared
to claim his prize.
Indeed! I have become a papa!
cried the little man.
She offered him all the kingdom
but he wanted only this -
a living thing
to call his own.
And being mortal
who can blame him?

The queen cried two pails of sea water.
She was as persistent
as a Jehovah's Witness.
And the dwarf took pity.
He said: I will give you
three days to guess my name
and if you cannot do it
I will collect your child.
The queen sent messengers
throughout the land to find names
of the most unusual sort.
When he appeared the next day
she asked: Melchior?
Balthazar?
But each time the dwarf replied:
No! No! That's not my name.
The next day she asked:
Spindleshanks? Spiderlegs?
But it was still no-no.
On the third day the messenger
came back with a strange story.
He told her:
As I came around the corner of the wood
where the fox says good night to the hare
I saw a little house with a fire
burning in front of it.
Around that fire a ridiculous little man
was leaping on one leg and singing:
Today I bake.
Tomorrow I brew my beer.
The next day the queen's only child will be mine.
Not even the census taker knows
that Rumpelstiltskin is my name . . .
The queen was delighted.
She had the name!
Her breath blew bubbles.

When the dwarf returned
she called out:
Is your name by any chance Rumpelstiltskin?
He cried: The devil told you that!
He stamped his right foot into the ground
and sank in up to his waist.
Then he tore himself in two.
Somewhat like a split broiler.
He laid his two sides down on the floor,
one part soft as a woman,
one part a barbed hook,
one part papa,
one part Doppelganger.

Ah, my feet hurt these days
walking on these hills and slopes
and it’s been seven days
since my straw shoes were thinned and with holes
and become tattered and absolutely useless.
I remember I was walking in the fields and
I could feel my feet touch the ground and I said:
Curse you, you silly straw shoes!
Is that how long you last?
Is that how you let me down
when I need you most?
Well, like humans I have known,
and so my straw shoes;
they too tire of their friends and relatives
and they too feel the burden
and inconvenience
of serving an old parent.
But I’ve just thrown old shoes away
as one throws old memories and the past away .
Let me make myself new straw shoes
as I sit below these trees and away from the crowd
and with a little peace
for an old man like me
I can be quiet in this shade
perhaps talk to myself or sing some far-off song
and make myself
straw shoes, new ones
and I’ll walk again with new shoes
as one may drop, discard
and put away all old memories
and walk afresh and anew
with no shadow of the past over one’s head.
Let me make simple straw shoes;
that will suffice, just for the purpose;
nothing fancy, just so to be able to walk comfortably
as I go about my work
on the hills and slopes and the fields…
that is all one needs…
…an old man like me just making his own straw shoes…