Bait and Switch
The wolves go up; the wolves go down.
They eat some kerchiefed villagers.
Next morning, they wake in human skin.
Ain't that a kick in the teeth?
Naked, the wolves get a regular rise
Out of their opposable thumbs,
Go around pinching things, and stubbing
Their toes on tree roots, but
None too swift. Soon a pack of wolves
comes by and eats them all up.
Next morning, they wake shaggy
As babushkas, twice as fat as before
And they howl and howl, Linochka,
Linochka . . . oh! such a funny way to sing.
The Palace of Fortune
I dream that a pumpkin gets up on its tendrils
And takes a walk, through a desert,
A savannah, a cool, dark night.
He is a knight-errant, seeking love,
enchanted palaces, the anodyne home of Fortune.
I'd hardly lain down, exhausted and shivering,
Ragged as the edge of a spade, a broken
Armament, when this enormous vision
Filled me with the pomp, the beauty
of the pumpkin, its delicate, aerial limbs.
As it walks, it sows its seeds behind it, each one
A little door, an entranceway of gold.
With great knocks it beats the doors down;
announces itself as the Vagabond of Desire.
Open up, little golden doors! Open up, great
Doors to the home of Fortune. The fragrant
Prince is hidden in your silent frames, laughing
With green tendrils, somnabulent with love.
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