The Wheel

In most cases, the wheel balances,
spins its pleasure and pain,
goes round and comes round again,
not cliché but fact.

Think this one time it will not return
but deny its O nature and evolve,
sprout teeth that gnash and mesh
connect and machinate,

sport right angles and triangulate
or pull and push itself
to wobble elliptically,
bump along out of synch—

but no, here it is, come round again
innocent as peek-a-boo
confounding as a cow, stolid
as an ox pulling its plow

turning up broken clods of fertile soil
in a valley of ideas where rain
becomes river and sky turns to ocean.

The box it comes in means nothing.
Now tell the joke until you get the punchline,
Then pass it on.


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