A little girl in her Halloween princess costume,
purple and white, thin satin or polyester,
a slit in the sleeve, a sweatshirt underneath
her mother made her wear over her screams.
Still, she couldn't be more excited, waving
her cardboard wand. Children need so little;
pennies for the fountain, bread for the sparrows.
You tell them to sit on the floor and they do.
Even rich kids know there's nothing better
than a tree house, creaking in the wind.
Talking into tin cans, gazing down at the rain,
they understand what a kingdom is, though they
can't know they'll spend their lives trying
to get back to that high throne, that cardboard
wand with which they conjured a future
so different from the one that arrived.