• Iron Don Quixote fights his windmills
    as a tribute to a war he never won.
    And Dulcinea is a girl of twelve
    who can’t seem to find her way out of dreams
    housed in the soft binding of library books
    and whispered possibilities.

    His castle is as real as the sun
    and the girl carries every wish that ever burned,
    because it got too close to the truth
    in a messenger bag to school.

    Here she wanders,
    a stray dog in a country where the Queen
    and the Fool are worshipped.
    Between walls that murmur standardized lunacy
    upon unconscious hearts.

    And suddenly she glances down
    to find an ivy and blue rose covered door,
    that at one time had been a painting
    and then, out of quiet desperation,
    formed life and grew a hinge
    and a golden knob.

    She places a gentle hand upon the smooth,
    wanting metal and presses her burning ear
    to the cold linoleum
    and waits for a miracle.