Svankmajer Alice

The tea turns the sides of
the white cup a steady rust:
a little girl, holding a
globed cheek in one hand,
tosses dark pebbles
into the small reservoir.
Clink, goes the china,
and Alice yawns.

Scratching one leg
her pink knee sock climbing
lazily downward; her feet
in black shoes, patent leather.
The dead rabbit
in the glass case jerks and
twitches -
tight, primal motion,
removing the nail
from his foot.

The hole is long;
jars full of specimen
and flora and fauna,
and bones and garlic,
corpses and oil,
and tea and jam, and
marbles and bells
line the walls, and down…

“Oh dear, oh dear,”
said the White Rabbit.

The rocks become
treacle tart;
Bill the Lizard,
skin-meatless bones
held together by pins,
powders his wig, dusts off
his blue velvet sport coat and
goes to retrieve Mary Ann from the chimney.
Fire, he says, Fire! – And there are rocks,
Alice thinks, I am like a cup of tea to them -
Pebbles, really, and the dollhouse quivers
and her baby white teeth bite into the second
tart and suddenly she’s falling into the floor and
falling and down and down and falling and there are
mats in her hair;
her pink dress dirtied;
motion, stiff
plastic. Become a small thing, like these other small
things, and “All in this world” –
said Alice to herself –
“are small things.”
The pig and the pepper,
the baby and the stair.
The duchess and the pots,
the cat and rabbit,
the queen and her lord
crowing the trial.

“Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be
late!”
said the White Rabbit.
Alice drops slim white legs
behind the table; the rabbit breaks
the glass, and on deft paws
he tears
the seams that keep his
dried chest closed, his
guts falling
out,
sawdust and cotton.

© 2010 Catelyn Jones Newman

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Catelyn Jones Newman is an odd bird.