Box
In the beginning,
There was only a man in a box,
Surrounded by nothing.
It was soundproof and odor proof.
It had no windows and no exits.
The man sat in a corner
With his eyes closed
And felt only a sense of gravity
Relative to somewhere else.
When the man sneezed,
The box was swallowed by a whale,
But, because there was only a whale,
No air for it to breathe,
No plankton to filter,
The whale died
And decayed into a landscape.
When the man opened his eyes
And stood up,
A flock of starlings
Twisted Moebius ribbons
Through the air
Over the landscape.
Because the box had mirrored sides,
Some birds smashed hard
Into the box and died.
Although the man stood
With his hands behind his back,
Staring at a wall in consternation,
He could not see the birds,
And he could not hear their necks break
As they thumped against the box.
Later, the man did jumping jacks,
And a house was constructed around the box.
When the man became tired
And laid down to rest,
Someone found the box,
Tied a bow around it,
And set it on a table.
In the end,
Just as the man was dying,
A five-year old boy
Saw the box on the table
And opened it.
He reached in and laughed with glee
To find, in his hand,
A tin mouse painted red and green.
The boy wound it tight
And set it on the floor.
The mouse tinkled and whirred
And skittered beneath a couch.
The boy dove under
To retrieve the mouse,
But found himself, instead,
Inside an empty box.
AS PUBLISHED in the September 2013 issue of Disturbed Digest, Alban Lake Press