Your forearm supplies the sock puppet’s spine,
your thoughts checker the sock’s, your will argyles
the plain white weave. The sock’s got half a mind—
though one half too few—to refuse to smile,
and grins and bears the voices in its head:
your four fingers and opposable thumb
miming the mouthful that cannot be said.
Elastic resolve slackens, lips once mum
now loose and sinking ships. But its windows
to the soul, salvaged from snowmen’s sockets,
stay sewn on. De-boned, it sways when wind blows
like reversed Depression-era pockets,
and dreams of ventriloquist’s knees, a pawn’s
wooden posture, just one leg to stand on.