The Pixies of Possibility

Irreverent things, small and free,
they normally dwell in dells, or woods,
where Now is a tree and Later might be
a house in a river, in one of its moods.

Above us they flutter, wings buttering
the oleo air like Wonder Bread;
they fling cinders from fires, uttering
the magic words: Maybe, Perhaps, Instead.

They turn Comedies into Tragedies,
the kind of Despair that dances with Joy:
for hit by a bus, or a passing breeze,
a frustrated toddler flinging a toy—

it’s all the same. A Possibility,
when photographed, will always appear
as a luminous smudge—like poetry.
Nothing threatening, nothing to fear,

I’m sure that you have seen their lights,
I’m sure you’ve also heard their song,
looking up from a book on one of those nights
you heard a siren hurtling along.