I'm chatting at a party with a civic engineer
who shows me dreams she hungers to erect.
I praise her fine sketches (she's insecure)
until... oops, here comes my ex!
Rattled, I shut down--just can't stay.
Too bad for the planner! I slink away,
hide in a guy-galaxy round a girl
costumed for Vegas or Carnaval--
loping dancerlegs, glitter on bare
caramel skin of belly and breast,
but back and flanks white velvet fur!
Huge-eyed rabbit mask. No... her.
For she's a hare's herbivorous soul
granted a magical night to shine
as recompense for a life in jail,
as a farm beast slated tonight to die:
the main course at a farmer's feast.
And I have to call her away. It's time.
My heart rebels--I hover, mute,
ashamed of my part-time job with Fate.
She glances at me, looks away--prolongs
her moment just a heartbeat more,
reluctant to put down her toys--
language, fingers, these adoring boys,
(I'm one) as any child at bedtime would.
So fair, so fur. I'd save her, if I could.
We can't fight fate. And then I do.
Heaven's ballroom shivers like
an etherquake ran through.
Heaven's subtle fault is healed--
my wish crowbarred the world!
Beaming I lead her aside to say:
"Welcome to Animal Heaven! You shine
so bright, you donned a human mind
so well, that you've been granted
a rabbit-boon unprecedented.
You know us beasts in Paradise
rest a mere lifespan, and then
swan-dive from the stratosphere
to earth and birth to learn again.
But your new self's so wonderstrong,
you stamped your form on time!
You'll be a dancing rabbit girl
free to roam these astral worlds, for
fifteen thousand years forever young.
I love you now, and ever will
Until I age and rejoin the wheel.
But you'll dance freely on!"
More souls join the party. Why do they sing,
link arms and kick in chorus lines? Oh!
Heaven's an Andrew Lloyd Webber show.
Explains a lot. So overblown and bling.
Now my wish molds me. Beast-soul pries
out of its Chrys-alias. I'm young and slight,
so light I levitate! Am I boy again or bird?
Perch on a rafter as diners clap. I blush red
as robin, and scold the librettist: "One too
many miracles! This is her night." "No,"
the city planner laughs up. "Two is fine!
Happy endings for you both is just Divine."
And as Lloyd Webber's oom-pah chorus swells
in a rousing final song,
I start to ask my sacrificing self:
"Could I be wrong?"
