Diorama with a 20-Watt Bulb Inside

Child hunkered down in grass,
breaking it for letters.

"Here's T," he says, "here's I"
—stalling in the parking lot.

Sharks can't get you on land,
the father voice goes.

And the child:
"On Scooby Doo, they do, they do."

I turn to take him in—
he is shepherding ants into a bath

they don't exactly want.
The three worlds of us. Lambs.

Simply a matter of going over the bluff—
everything really—and everything else

adrift in international waters.

Copyright © 2008 John Isles All rights reserved
from Colorado Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission