Among animals mourning
a holiday in the Alps
(Exiled, exalted, I know, out of their

Wonderland, opposed
to my theme park Coney
Island mind), I plucked the chunk fungus,

ghost-gilled, and all noted my subsequent
fast lasting forty days
and nights in the desert

(‘desert’ has one ‘s’,
‘dessert’ has two because
you want more –

there is no dignity
in appetites). The moon rose
and I bumped my head

on it (Beg your pardon, Ma’am) stubbed my toe on a
mountain. They huddled
in the center of the field

barren and fallow
devoid of all life
quiet and still.

Then I denied that
the Rabbit was no taller
than my little toe and poor

Bill pinkie wide.
Their ears bleed when I whisper
into the cave.

They had hidden
the common
of the heart

here, us opposing
like the dead
and their giving

absolution to the living.
(‘I understand,’ they say to all
the eaters of mushrooms.)

We were eventually to forget
at a detention center
and you refused to learn

about the mountain
moving as a dancer and
myself, a gimp, a crip, forgetting movement

limping over the
finish line
bereft of all

baptismal lost.
It will be your
last task to

remember this assign
ment to silence
the old voices

relentless. I will become
an entertainer, consummate.
I can’t run

away, always even
towards the
finish. Small bottles

made me consider
the morning alone
secure in the flesh.

Like the creatures
and the animals, receiving (a thimble!) prizes,
toss the die, roll bones.