origami

(a poem for children)

walking up the path

i found a great

paper house

astounding!

surrounded by folded

ferns and cedars

delicate cranes

and swans

and geese

hanging stars

swayed overhead

a slender boat rested

on rustling waves

and inside the house

were tables

and lamps

bowls

and boxes

and books

i unfolded them all

til morning

ah!

the sea of paper!

a mountain of

identical sheets!

and laughing

i reached

for the walls

with my own

creased

hands

the finished series:

stages of living

one

two

three

eighty-two

one evening

sitting alone inside

i caught a lit up stirring

below the dimness

of my mind

and turned in

and in

the cooling violet rivers

pooling around the pillars

still bent beneath

such heavy flesh

the sacrifice

left

behind

an older woman

new widow

maybe fifty to sixty

speaks to me

the lines on her papery skin

folding delicately

around every expression

careful illustrations for the twists

and tones of her story

nearly done

until she suddenly

implores of me

her age

demanding

that i guess

then interjecting

that No One

Ever

Guesses

Over

Forty.

mid-to-late thirties

perhaps

she hears the most

she sweated herself down to zero

percent body fat

wears the most fashionable clothes

and spends a fortune on her hair

but the men around here

only want a girl who's

twenty-two

she says

but those aren't really men

anyway

she says

and i wonder

who's making those men?

our boys

surely

we must have

some say

in it