They meant
content
without a sigh in it

But I liked stars
much better than bars
and kept the sky on it

No crown
or down
held me in tie to it

But I dreamed jewels
in the deepest pools
where none could spy on it

They thought
I ought
so I could die in it

But I learned ends
do not make amends
and did not try for it

Some day
I may
know the how and why of it

CITY GAME: MARBLES

Like gods competing for the universe,
they shoot the planets between their fingers
with trigger thumbs that scale the speed of light
to intervals of space-colliding time.