Lent Poem # 3: Sexless Wonderland

by Adam Parrow

To fall down a hole
filled with cuckoo clocks and
used bits of brick-a-brack,
I have fallen so far
behind.

The doormouse isn’t home
and his teacups lay
used and dirty in the sink.
I wash them for him.

What of the hatter
so mad he ran screaming
stark naked
among the slithy toves?
Did he remember to
leave me his itinerary?

I have been trimmed and
boiled. My manhood
is a mock turtle,
crying to be spared,
but tiny turtle voices don’t carry.
The clock tick tocks on

and I have always empathized
with white rabbits. They, running
they, late. All
bramble knees and thump thump

Thump of my ventricle,
hollow echo of my ear,
In the pin pricks of my finger
tip, and the flaccid hunch of
my back. Thump thump thud.