Nothing
Nothing happens if you just stand still
Mermaids continue handing out leaflets at the mall
Circus dogs roll red and yellow balls across the sawdust
Men in snap-brim hats insist the Big Bands are coming back
People of opposite races risk uncertain smiles
misinterpreted as scowls
If you stand still your perspective will not change
From below important people seem foreshortened
In Breugel's painting Icarus forever thrashes against death
Astronauts have boomeranged to moon and back
but you're waiting for the hoaxers to confess
Couples fall in love until the evidence proves otherwise
Nothing changes because you wish it would
That German Pope for example Or the taste of cabbage
The angry Pekinese next door growls like a pick-up truck
and the magnolia sheds its petals only hours
after you first noticed them
Your address is still the one where people find you
Because you wish for it hope remains a valid thesis
The rationale for suicide hotlines
A pretext for calendars
A name given to newborn girls
A long vowel sound bracketed by consonants
Hope for change and time fills uncontrollably up
with everybody's alternate worlds
Mermaids roll red and yellow balls across the sawdust
Men in snap brim hats growl like pick-up trucks
People of opposite races fall in love
only hours after the hoaxers confess
Will nothing happen if you move?
Magnolias shed their petals while you sleep
Your new address
will be the one where people find you
