Half awake, the boy in the big bed haunted
by guns sits up to fire his blank tears.
The world he dreamed was a palace, painted
blue to match the Queen’s dress. There were fairs
every day. He could swim. Whenever he wanted,
the animals left, and a tent slanted
over the chair where he kept her warm
Because of the dwarf in the moat, he invented
the gun she let him have; he guarded her room
at night. Whatever he asked, she granted.
He lived there years and years: he counted
time by counting how many names
he could find for that dark, dwarf-stunted
man in the moat, and how many times
he had killed what all those names hunted.
He dreamed all this. He dreamed that scented
Queen who’d never, ever, let him be dead.
But when he woke, he could hear, tented
over her, big as the dark of her bed,
the dwarf whose black cannon was mounted.
His fingers wanted to kill, but were blunted
with lead: a world of infinite corridors
weighted his waking, and everywhere slanted
away, away from dreaming to wars
in bed; which was not the world he wanted.
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