The paradox of laughing wings, glinting in shadows and corners,

silhouettes in mirrors not telling anymore (they made stuff up).

Patterns everywhere.

Waves of vanishings and everyday houses,

everyday adults gliding glorious mowers

over evergreen grasses. Our neighbours

on the corner, kings of the court and nothing to hide, see

their grand wall-windows and double trilling doorbell. A vow: never

press that bell, not even if dared. But odd days arose,

a robin darted to my side of the fence saying

it would go to the shops (they made stuff up). We’d talk and play. I was young to hear about

patterns. Sleeping beauty and the sovereign prince. Suburban stories, particles glimmering

in sunlight, scoured dutifully, daily. A Disney tale, catlike in a quantum way: alive, dead,

alive, dead. And the robin flitting over my fence, spinning in a kaleidoscope of whisperings

(they made stuff up). Together we traced the cat’s movements, the drop of its shoulders,

coil of its haunches, twitch of its tail. And then. The long summer. A dead cat

when distracted and the robin alive. We laughed and danced, and the fence stood strong. We

ribboned off rainbows, singing to the sky for sanctuary—until the season of leaving Little Looking.

Until siblings flew further than fences (they made stuff up). The cat,

alive, repeating patterns. Patterns unsettled only if

seen. We saw

too late. We.

made. stuff. up.