Thous by the Thousands

There’s too much gobbling

going on. Gobble up the baby

with his cheeks! Gobble up the girlhood,

with its eyes. Gobble up the novel with its world

and scoop the lovers up, to coop them in.

After the gulletful, the lip

is dabbed. No trouble.

Just a single gob can multiply

into a gobble’s worth—or one small rub

into a rubbled history—the hag a whole

damned marketplace. And one scribe’s

nib? Well, after all, you get

the point. Get out the bib

(and lengthen up the eye).

Take that—a double-handled cup! Take

this—a clamor for acclaim. Throw in

a fiddle for Fidelio, and for the little lady

baby Bob, a nodding ornament.

The gleam of insight dimmed into a glimmer.

Our awe before a one-and-only

bogged down into frequentatives. From the break

in space and time—a crack across the priceless pottery—

we crackled up production lines. The thunderbolt to shake

your being’s very frame—the heavens’ way

of sparking up a conversation—that

got channeled down into white noise.

We slept in letters, woke in stitches,

toggled off and on. At last, forever

happened: we appeared in Oz, on Death TV,

where the illusions of expanded view

could not diminish anybody’s hunger.

Given an allowance, we began

to spend eternity, all but agog

in our designer goggles.