After Breakfast

The Red Queen boasted to Alice that
she could believe six impossible things
before breakfast, and I believe her,
hunger being a great stimulant
of the imagination.

Surely, nothing could be easier
than believing almost anything
before one's eaten.

But after breakfast
--that's a different story.
Once we're fed, scepticism
rears its snake-like head, sneering;
the wildest inventions seem boring
and trite; and the knights of the page
are now very bad riders.

I'd rather believe in
the lie of the land,
the turn of the seasons,
paths raked, dahlias staked,
apple trees dropping their ripe
fruit fermenting on the ground,
the wasps swarm, drunkenly
crawling through pools of raw cider,
they drown, happily, I suppose,
while the crows, having feasted,
sway gently on their toes.