Fluffy Puhsketti for Tiny Tess the Plastic Deer

I'll take all the time I need. I'm free
When I know I'm free. Any other
Definition of freedom seals me

In a need to do well urgently.
Urgency is the builder of walls
The Lord of the House of Dust, false friend

To any lover or brother caught
In the net of lordly urgency.
I'm free because I happen to be.


My daughter, feeling a bit left out
By Papa loving Mama, Mama
Loving Papa in morning sunlight,

Entertains herself with a toy deer
At the massive stone dining table,
Feeding it a large bowl of necklace.

In time, her characterization
Of the deer as Tess, messy eater
Of the giant sparkling bowl of food


Cooked by imagination's author,
Metaphor, and envisioned as loops
Of fluffy spaghetti noodles, yum,

Is sufficient to distract Sukha
From the anxiety created
By parents doting on each other

But not on her. And then, suddenly,
So no one, least of all she, can see,
She feels light and free, and she is free.