The Choking of Gewgaws

I call my house from a cellphone.

I’ve just seen a girl in an empty parking lot.

We used to think something of each other,

if she’s the right person. I call to check on

couches, pans, pots; I wonder if light still reflects.

In childhood, it was a real question whether

a party went on without me, or do toys move

when they are alone? Is the world swallowed

by solipsism, right down to the smallest object?

A music box's insides must need surgery

every now and then. Carousel horses can stare

the whole day long. A man from UPS stands on my lawn

quiet as a curling disc over a glass chessboard, he delivers

a product by foreign women in factories who finger

ribbons and eye the windows more than average.

There are more than just finite and infinite games;

sometimes even a hearse is warm when thinking indoors.