As a child, I hated statues, comic books.
I sighed whenever I was given a doll—
these stand-ins for living beings angered me.
Stuffed animals on my bed drove me to tears.
Why settle for Snoopy, Barbie, baby dolls?
I wanted a puppy, slurping on my face;
a teenage friend with a boyfriend and real breasts;
a baby who’d do more than close her eyes
when I laid her down! Where did this rage
against the mockery of art come from?
What did I know? I was only a child
with my immortal life ahead of me.
Nothing I loved was dying. (What was death?
Somebody’s costume at a masquerade?
I hated masquerades!) But time was ticking:
a baby cousin in a puffy box;
my teacher’s science bulletins at school:
The sunlight on your face is eight years old.
The twinkling stars you wish on have gone out.
How could I bear a world where nothing held?
Everything, everything falling through the sieve
into the graveyard of the past: puppies,
babies, teenagers, mothers, fathers, me—
all of us swirling round in that whirl of time!
This was a rough epiphany for a kid
with a passion for the real. I held my breath,
hoping to make it stop—until I blacked out—
and woke up to a dying world, old sunlight
shining on my face, a child no more,
now that I knew what art and rage were for.