This creature is almost more muse
than monster. It knows when a myth
can do no harm and why Mozart's
music is often so frantic. It understands

the feud within the image, the voice
and the law. It can always tell
the distinctions between lines it has read
and those it whips up like frostings

in the bowl of its own creativity.
But it's not perfect. I've seen it whisper
lines like In the beginning and Slow
and silvery as if the universe wasn't

already rich with their echoes. One day
I caught it mulling over the possibility
of So much depends upon. I had no real
choice. It was time to enroll the thing

in obedience school. There it learned
to heal, roll over, stay put when told to,
and how to fetch a ball. They were great
lessons, but I've noticed how much more

it sleeps than plays these days, and I've
seen how infrequently it wades out into
the literary mischief of its youth. I do not
know if that's maturity or resignation.