The going's rough, and so we need the laugh of bright incisors, molars of goodwill. Our times are still not safe and sane enough for faces to show or… - Wisława Szymborska

Our times are still not safe and sane enough
for faces to show ordinary sorrow.

They were or they weren't. On an island or not. An ocean or not an ocean Swallowed them up or it didn't.

I knock at the stone's front door. "It's only me, let me come in."<p>"I don't have a door," says the stone.

We treat each other with exceeding courtesy;
we says, it’s great to see you after all these years.

Our tigers drink milk.
Our hawks tread the ground.
Our sharks have all drowned.
Our wolves yawn beyond the open cage.

Our snakes have shed their lightning,
our apes their flights of fancy,
our peacocks have renounced their plumes.
The bats flew out of our hair long ago.

We fall silent in mid-sentence,
all smiles, past help.
Our humans
don’t know how to talk to one another.