Who Would Steal A Puppet?

Someone broke into the puppet house,
the article recorded,
and lifted it off the wall.

Oh, come on,
who would steal a Sicilian puppet
then abandon it on the roadside?

A renegade puppetmaster
turned liberator?

Another real live boy
entangled by his own strings?

A walnut carved effigy
frustrated by someone elses words
squeaking out of his hinged jaws?

Did he do it to impress a shimmering blue fairy
or on a dare from his candlewick?

The logic of a wooden head
may be abstruse
but if you asked him why
could he tell the truth?

Can he even guess who moves
his limbs forward into virtue or folly?

And where was his conscience?
In the real story
Pinocchio wings a mallot
and squashes the cricket
flat against the wall.

Concerning The Red Shoes

Across the rustic village
over the stone bridge
down the rutted lane
along the restless river
past the thatched roofed shops, and especially
among footwear admirers
within the fountain square I wear them. Bought
at the shoemaker’s,
opposite the millinery. The ones he cut

Around a template
through a scrap of red leather
from the last piece he begged
off the reluctant tanner, then left out
on the work bench,
before he retired
below the stars’ despair
beneath the moon’s hope
under the counterpane
between his wife’s kindly breasts.

During the visit, that same midnight,
from the dexterous elves
in shivering rags who cavorted and capered
amid the lasts and awls,
despite the rimy frost
beside the scant fire place embers
after they crafted exquisite stitches
through the pivotal night
of the couple’s changed fortune.

Around that time they decided to discover,
behind the workshop curtains
beside themselves with joy,
about the nature
of the beings who rescued them
with random acts of cobbling
until the wife fashioned kindly garments
considering her gratitude
(except for shoes of course)
without stinting on fanciful embellishments,
above reproach in style and craft,
into twin tiny suits, warm
throughout a harsh winter
against the fairy tale cold, where the elves dwelled
alongside the kindly mounded hills
beyond our most distant lands.

Lightning Bug

“The difference between a word and the right word is the difference
between lightning bugs and lightning.”
Mark Twain

Sometimes
a lightning bug is
just the thing

warm

intermittent

yellow

small

flare

whereas lightning
itself
le seul mot juste
blinds you
in dazzlement

the namesake creature
lights and darks
lights and flies

thus you track it
not with your eyes
rather
with your mind’s eye

anticipation
projected over
disconnected
blinks.