Remember me, kids? Here:
My head a high pumpkin, to you I take off
the lid. I reach with my hand and take
the vine handle—so. Look!—these gropy
little seeds inside want summers and rain,
open hillsides and many long furrows
in fields full of halloween dreams.
Here’s where the fire lives, here, to shine
out of my eyes. Watch out for the flame!
I have brought empires down to squeaks in
the weeds; weasels have hidden here, and saints.
I folded Rome here. And, yes, there are
boxes I wouldn’t want to disturb.
In this room I built a glass eye with camera
inside, linked with Telstar: remember the blind
old beggar you passed on the way to the movies?
he broadcast by Telstar the whole mardi gras
your town plays; and once when you clattered
a nickel, one day in his cup, it deafened
the scanners tuned up for subtler acts,
all the way back to the echoing halls of
the Pentagon.
Oh, there are too many acts, children, we
grownups know. I could tell you about
a world where fathers and mothers are
lost, and their children might save them.
But now, my head a high pumpkin, I reach up
my hand and put the lid with the vine handle
firmly down again-so. Now go tell your parents
Uncle Bill’s come.
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