The Wish for Queen Alice
After a caucus-fracas…
Our wonder-world is upside down—
The pandas dream of being cats,
Each king declares himself a clown,
All minds go flittering like bats.
The Dodo stalks our marketplace,
Declaiming to the populace
That we must run a caucus race,
And all must win, yet one rule us.
So where’s our Alice in this land,
To stare big-eyed at panda cats
Or simply fail to understand
How human minds can be so bats?
Again astound, confound, be crowned:
Restore the realm to down side down.
Marly Youmans is the author of fifteen books of poetry and fiction. Her latest poetry collection is The Book of the Red King, from Phoenicia Publishing in Montreal, 2019, and her latest novel is Charis in the World of Wonders, published by Ignatius Press of San Francisco in 2020.