Lost woman of Lilliput,
   the witness, midwife to my agonies,
 
I have trapped you
   in one of Popa’s little boxes—
 
a shoebox painted black
   and purfled with many cottonballs.
 
How lonesome it must be	
   to stand there all alone, to do nothing	
 
but stare at this endless four-sided night….   
   With a butcher’s knife,
 
I poke tiny holes for stars, a larger hole
   for my blinkless eye—the moon.
 
Then I stand an Army Man inside,
   the one whose rifle is forever

raised to the heavens,
  most phlegmatic of mates,
  
but you only sit there cross-legged,
  nibbling your fingernails,
  
stroking your tow-colored hair.  
  In the meantime, I am crouched

in my ill-lit basement with one eye
  narrowed in your moonhole,
  
listening to my wife’s continuous
  clopping footfalls overhead….
  
“Just one more little box
  among an infinity of little boxes,” I say,
  
handing you one, which happens to be  
  coffin-shaped and just your size.