And as in Alice

Alice cannot be in the poem, she says, because

She's only a metaphor for childhood

And a poem is a metaphor already

So we'd only have a metaphor

Inside a metaphor. Do you see?

They all nod. They see. Except for the girl

With her head in the rabbit hole. From this vantage,

Her bum looks like the flattened backside

Of  a black and white panda. She actually has one

In the crook of  her arm.

Of course it's stuffed and not living.

Who would dare hold a real bear so near the outer ear?

She's wondering what possible harm might come to her

If  she fell all the way down the dark she's looking through.

Would strange creatures sing songs

Where odd syllables came to a sibilant end at the end.

Perhaps the sounds would be a form of  light  hissing.

Like when a walrus blows air

Through two fractured front teeth. Perhaps it would

Take the form of a snake. But if a snake, it would need a tree.

Could she grow one from seed? Could one make a cat?

Make it sit on a branch and fade away again

The moment you told it that the rude noise it was hearing was

         rational thought

With an axe beating on the forest door.