The I as a Floundering Encyclopedia

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As a cake, I sat in the bakery window.

I was the window. I looked through myself

and saw myself as a translucent infant. 

I was wrapped in a blanket, coddled,

sung to by a girl who had wed the sky.

With her tongue-tip, she lit a forbidden

candle. I was the burning wick. I was the

park where she sat, alone, eating lemons with

her filed teeth. I was the radish growing under

ground, snipping off pieces of myself with

pearl-handled scissors. I was a hog. I snuffled

through the underbrush in search of a

flawless truffle. I took myself to every market.

I had no resemblance to the night sky.