She looks...
At the shape
Of her dreams
But she needs to forget…

So strong is
The pressure she feels
To please the eye
To please the world.

A dragonfly
And a rare moth,
A fragment and a bone,
The dust of times
The rust of his soul
In his cabinet of wonders.

Identity, a risky place
At the end of a labyrinthine path!
She could go so far
With her brisk thoughts,
But his strategic mind
Lives in fear
And clearly can’t afford them.

She must charm
They said
She must have the shape
Of his empty illusions…
And forget many fulfilling dreams
To become
a hylomorphic fantasy.

After the heavy garden door
Past the bushes and the thorns
The handrail that shines in silence
leads her up the winding wooden stairs

When she walks into the office
Where the window’s shut for good
Where the light agonizes on the wall
There’s a cabinet of wonders.

If she opens it she sees
The bitter shape of his dreams
The delusive shade of his shame
And the projections that want to clear his name.

She hesitates
Just for a second or two
His images
His ideas imbued
In her mind create confusion

But confusion speaks
And its voice is loud
So the influence
That made her follow
No longer is her guide.

There’s a butterfly
And a fish fossil
The painting of a Po’ouli
There’s an Etruscan coin
And his empty soul
But she’ll never be in there

Her content is too precious
To adopt the form imposed;
Her determined hand has closed it
       
               Now!

(That old cabinet of wonders).