Flowers In The Snow From The Fictive Dream

we were leafing through
the complete guide to not saying
what you want to say

it was an enclyopedia
someone sold us on a summer day
caroled Alice, warily

in multiple printings
emerald green

with gilt titles

very short chapters.
we memorized it by dawn
dreading the math test more

because the formulas
kept switching places and were
never written in coloured chalk

we ran out of honey and time
and coloured milk for the
breakfast cereals

and tokens for the bus
while the leaves turned to rust.

I never met a math book
you didn't like
I smiled up at the engineers

leaving for Oz
in the middle of the night.
between clouds as between occupations

solving it that way.
without a single mirage.

mary angela douglas 7 january 2018