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By Gabrielle Truax
It was large—
No, it was vast…
And permeating.
A tiny space
Held all that landscape.
Unlimited plains
Met the eye upon entry:
You could travel across mountains;
You could drive down alleys;
You could stroll in the sun,
In spring, past colonial French houses.
You could swallow sand
As you tried passing train vehicles
At break-neck speeds.
One territory merged into
The next.
I saw a boy smiling,
But his identity was unfixed,
And really it was only herself smiling.
This territory was odd.
There were conversations,
Between the boy and herself;
There were places and moments.
It was like parts of a story.
To the right I heard crackly hoo-ing —
An owl.
Or actually it was her stomach growling,
But it became a matter-of-fact,
Neat, little owl
Making owl-calls frankly.
Then, well,
It was like a cliff —
Open air followed.
Lots of floating things,
And no scenery.
These floating things warred quite frequently.
Really, they started a tug of war.
And I got banged from side to side,
Like the contents of a snow globe.
And there was something yucky,
Quite sensitive, red, and blotchy.
If you even touched it,
It stung with pain.
But a river ran by it
That went down deep
To a whole other sphere.
I made a sharp turn
And came upon something worn,
But still lovely.
You could hold it, touch it,
And pet it against your face.
You could wrap your arms around it,
And snuggle it close to your heart.
You could look and think
About these memories.
And beyond that,
There remained
Who knows how much
Unexplored.
But things grew slow,
Like frost numb fingers
Fighting motion.
Everything started to settle,
Landing quietly on the surface bottom.
Territories, like shops,
Began closing.
The world was shrinking.
It was time to exit
The magic space
Whose insides
Exploded with expanding life.
The box, in fact, seemed
To be emptying.
Containing the number
Of items expected
For its dimensions.
Soon the machine would be
Slow to a stop.
Then the lights,
The brilliancy,
Would come on for the unconscious lot.
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