Mary Ruefle

MARIA AND THE HALLS OF PERISH

She loved dandelions
but hated the circus.
She wanted to know where eggs
came from, really came from,
where came the body of the body
of the body they came from.
And when her heart made
that sad little oboe note
she wanted to know where
the mind came from,
and was as answerless
as if she sat in the middle
of a beginningless river.
The beginning of the universe
reminded her of the time
the toy factory blew up
and she found a little clown
on the shore, and then another,
until she was determined to find
them all, the whole shebang,
though she never did, and night
fell over the ocean, and eye-popping
children of all ages slept in a sleep
brimming with irresistible attractions,
giving them a taste of what
awaited them when they woke,
though it was nothing compared
to the massive arrays of adulthood.

MARY RUEFLE is the author of My Private Property (Wave Books). Her book of essays, Madness, Rack, and Honey, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, and her Selected Poems won the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. She lives in Bennington, Vermont.