Diorama

Saint Paul, 8 November 2005

All the world’s lovers

Assemble in wild fields

In broomsedge bluestem and aster

Suffused for a moment in moonlight

Woods vanish from unpaved roads

Like cardboard transforms to dioramas

With lichen greenery and pebble paths

Suspended in globs of white glue

Daydreams cannot be mortgaged

In houses made from Popsicle sticks

But the hearth you’d imagined lingers

As if life carried on in a shoebox