Childhood Stories

They learned to turn off the gravity in an auditorium

and we all rose into the air,

the same room where they demonstrated

pow-wows and prestidigitation.

But not everyone believed it.

That was the most important lesson

I learned—that a truck driven by a dog

could roll down a hill at dusk

and roll right off a dock into a lake

and sink, and if no one believes you

then what is the point

of telling them wonderful things?

I walked home from the pow-wow

on an early winter night in amazement:

they let me buy the toy tomahawk!

As soon as I got home I was going

to hit my sister with it, but I didn’t know this.

Source: Satellite (Wave Books, 2001)