Memory

Let’s practice being small:
minikin mannequins mass
parading, masquerading as
queries from before the floor
became a field too far away
to wander; don’t squander
the quiet kenning, yearning,
keening. She seems a slightly
querulous thing, slighting even
sightly denizens of the world
in which you live; give her
ghosts instead, let her zen out
                                  (or in).
Twisting and rhyming, the
timing falls off until you’re left
mining the asphalt, miming
your own faults. Who’s fault
is that? Tarred and feathered,
she remembers the barred cage.
Full of music then, her ribbons
and robins hang in shreds. Dead
to your pleading, drunk and
needing, she winds her way
upstairs. Upstaged, you take
her dare, and make the grade.

_