Elegy as Spot's Lift-the-Flap Book

Spot is under the flap. Tom is
in the water

and Steve is up in the tree. Earlier, a man
hit a tree and

the tree broke his watch, dots from
the portable timepiece rolled onto paper,

became the periods of sentences, each
squatting down like all others,

out of harm's way,
out of being found.

Babies are behind the yellow door.
Babies are behind the red door and
the green door.

We are hiding behind the blue door.
We are looking for the minute hand.

The hour hand has assumed a new
job, turned on its side as a One Way sign.

We are still looking behind the blue
door, in a blue jar.
Time is in a blue jar,
or a green flame,

or it is in the red ball that we can't get
into unless it deflates.

Copyright © 2009 Victoria Chang All rights reserved
from the Southern Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission