I’ve been allowing myself to hear the crickets grow
and the old splendor in the grass sing,
or maybe there is an emotional black hole
that makes us all break in
and fall down a triptych of stairs
like a hundred faces and arms of Alice
groping around an indivisible well
of darkness and acme
until reaching their seat in a lotus hall
and hitching a rollercoaster ride on the back of a dragonfly
or swimming along in a butterfly’s dream

Is this what being happy means?
- to wear my flag like a child
holding tight to a star-shaped balloon
and get carried away underwater under a sun-glazed moon