As If It Could Be That Way (Final Version) Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

let me exchange
as if it could be that way
three more wounds later on
for the silver crumbs scattered
under sudden moonlight
for I'm misplaced
in this kingdom of glass

where anything breaks inro
prisms if you just look at it
and always picking rose petal words
too fast to be believed
by the nursery floor lions
split at the seam
half-splayed in their pink night-lighted dreams
and always butternut whispering
'why is she always this far
from the castle
and no further

waiting to be believed'?
as if it could be that way
that I may not distress
any further the voice
of darling God caught in the
brambles, every time;
moving that stickily on Lily-pad Paws
too beautiful to be believed
oh my savannah.

to be believed.
as if it could be that way
when I have closed my eyes
too far to see
and no one comes to find.

I will exchange
one small rosepetaled kingdom
misplaced in the kingdom of glass
for three more wounds, later on
when this has passed.

there's too much shattering anywhere
so that even the roses know it;
the rumpling lions.

mary angela douglas