Where Do Puppets Go When They Die

There are clouds
softer than the dance floors of our angels.
There are songs
too wide for our mouths
and they’re singing them,
swaying,
googly blackberry eyes bouncing along
with a beat that turned the world
back when we watched it spin
from the cradle.

There are no sinners here
in this exclusive club of sinners
and serendipitous
may be too many grades above their conversation
but supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
is the universal response to howdy-do.
The hugs are sparks of static electricity
and they dance
footloose and invisible
along the aisles of the theatre
as the orchestra plays:
menomenah
and they sing:
do doo de doo doo
and teach us all to count the small numbers again.

Somewhere there are no strings
and they look down
to see all of us
reaching up for them
never quite making it.

---

Sometimes you get a title so ripe it just paralyzes you. I remember Paul got into the same situation a couple times: A poem with words or a title good enough to write itself, so you end up sitting around for ten of your twenty minutes, chewing your pen while you wait for it to write itself.

So yeah, the ending was supposed to be this sort of very clear image with puppets floating free from outstretched hands, and - ah, shit, here comes the lady who ordered this thing, better wrap it up. Ouch. So close!