Pinocchio
By Linda A. Copp

Gone Pinocchio,
my wooden head
And a cool clear day
 of blue ahead.

The crystal sea,
the ocean sky,
All wrapped about me,
about me why?

Slender slits and shafts of glow,
sun drape the ground and make it so.
Pinocchio, Pinocchio,
where have you gone.
Where did you go?

I need to know, I need to know.
That wooden part
that made your head
Has turned my heart
to wood instead.

And splintered up its one time whole,
like so many fragments of char and coal.
And the cool, the clear, the blue today
even the traces of this fine Spring Day
Can't turn the hurt,
the wood inside
back to the thing that laughed and cried.

Pinocchio, Oh! Wooden Head,
A liar's nose,
A donkey's head.
A step of stringy, airy space.
A Poets loss,
A blind man's face.

Come back, come back
I love you still.
And the blue that's round the window sill.
Has filled my life, my everything.
And left me Queen without a King.

The Jester's Pawn,
The Knights sit still,
The Courts in gloom
 in dark and chill.

The suns outside and the blue is too.
But, what will I do, what will I do
my Pinocchio, without you?

By Linda A. Copp
©March 19, 1972