lives of ours—
these contrapuntal
fables—
need fewer
revisions
than they do
repeated listens.
The hell
of a booby-trapped
yellow brick road
is traversed
much more steadily
when marched arm-
in-arm
with surrogates.
In company, as in
hindsight, we might
finally see
that means
are really just
ends in disguise—
good witches, god-
mothers, and beautiful
enchantresses
transmogrified
to beggars
stranglers, and thieves;
and concepts
such as allegory,
metaphor, and moral,
no more
than scant patchworks
of leaves, placed
to cover-over
the crevices
in our scant experience
and deep pitfalls
of our laurels.
