All books are things with pages.

Some books are mysteries.

Therefore, the slide rule will not work

after it has tumbled into the rabbit hole.

Therefore, only the gulls will know the mystery

of the fish spine left to shimmer on the beach.

And all poems are things with hinges.

And doors work nicely as telescopes.

Therefore the circus tent works better

in moonlight than it does at noon.

Therefore the animals are shy and you

won’t ever know how facile they are with old

or dormant languages. Therefore a panda

is a fallacy only if you mistake it

for anything else but a penguin.

But even in such instances,

a fallacy may be forgiven. And all

paths that diverge in the wood

this time of year are either yellow

or not yellow, but none of them

is any less mysterious. Choose one

and choose another. Choose all or nothing.

Or choose to dwell in the more precarious middle.

Choose a condition preferably involving books

or maps or letters—Some kind of field

into which you might endlessly fall.