In a Little World

​In a little world, everything is
Small. There’s a small bed, there’s
A small museum, a small head, 
A small zoo and small bears,

A small library, a small 
Parliament, and a small amount
Of oxygen. If you need the wide,
Open spaces, you gallop, you mount

Mount St. Helens, it doesn’t amount
To a hill of beans, not even the painted
Desert, not even Pluto, coasting
Down its slide, you’re already acquainted

With every tired cinnabar nebula,
With every species of ant, with each
Fundamental force of nature (yawn),
You slam the brakes and screech.

My gosh, you’re sinking into the quantum
Sinkhole, little strings are squiggling
Under your overalls, your cell phone
Has no service, you feel the niggling

Of your own skin, of your own breath,
And the rasping skin of the sky is
Warmed-over death, you desperately look
At the root of the tree in Cadiz,

At the bumps of atoms on a copper bar,
They forget they are atoms, time
Forgets that it flows, beginning is end,
Infinity speaks from the sprite of a lime.