A Perfect World

Shy people would be kings and queens 
of their own secret realms. 
They might require everyone to wear sunglasses
for an hour every day while conversing 
with strangers. 
                        Jowly dogs wouldn’t slobber. 
I would give cats ten lives, and in return 
when I go to bed Spud 
would quit pouncing on my toes. 
It’s fun but I need sleep, plus 
it makes holes in the blanket. 
                                                Burger King 
would stop making crusty french fries; 
                                                            the rude lady 
in the hospital cashier’s office would get fired 
and would send notes of apology to everyone she’s
been rude to, and we would say, 
“Fine, but you are still fired.” 
                                                Suffering 
would be God’s way of forgiving us. 
                                                            It would snow 
sometimes, for taking pictures, but I wouldn’t 
bother the farmers with it when they need 
good weather. Horses are nice when they let you
come right up to them with a hand outstretched
full of grass from the other side of the fence. 
They take it carefully between their teeth 
and let you pat their nose.

                                    Not 
much else would spring to hand when 
our wishes outrun our needs. 
We wouldn’t want to miss the great pleasure 
of going looking and being reunited 
with things thought lost. This morning 
I knocked over a stack of books 
and found one I thought I would 
never see again, full of many wonderful poems 
by Hungarian poets! In my head Hungary 
was a land of sentimental gypsies, 
of rustic kitchen curtains with cheap lace, 
of tole-painting peasants’ funny attempts 
at making things symmetrical. You think their eyes
must be on the sides of their heads, like birds’. 
They speak a brutal, complicated language. 
They eat rutabagas and clap their rough hands 
and dance like hens and bears 
to brutal, complicated music. Bartok is God’s way
of settling scores with Liszt and Brahms, 
but what about war and pestilence, 
what about Hitler and Stalin? 
But now I love Hungary because the poets 
are sad enough and no sadder. Life for them 
is brutal and complicated. They make lace 
out of burlap, a world out of rubble. 
Maybe we will learn.