“How Many Steps to the Marmalade Factory?”
I.
We didn’t have a personal trolley car
assigned to us and the zookeeper
was making a scene—
one about a great war hero
who didn’t have even
one good chicken recipe. We nodded
for a long time knowing
that anyone of us could be placed
in that particular circumstance
and moved the herd
forward in time so we wouldn’t
be troubled with the complexities
of shoelaces, the noise of Velcro,
or the slipperiness of slip ons.
II.
We were in the new shoe
somehow. We had been
chosen suddenly as a herd. Being a
glamorously hobbling, drooling
bunch may have helped. But the modern
foot vehicle was being stepped on
by an estranged lover and at that moment
we knew the corn on the cob would only get colder.
III.
Mother waves to us. We are her children. Or she wishes she were a child and wants to steal our skins and wear them as a costume. We don’t care. She has lots of magazines with crossword puzzles in them. And it’s been a long time since we were last puzzled.