the expired place just down the block

There is an expired place just down the block,

expired meaning quite misplaced in time.

They say there you can find things like

bright green hats and Cinderella’s slippers

and broken fuses, salted pistachio shells and

linden branches and compasses that point

Down, not North. Not very long ago I was told

about a very peculiar object in this very

peculiar place. Wonderland in a bottle,

they said, Alice who fell down the rabbit hole

and the talking rabbit with his pocket watch!

And who was I not to believe them?

Last month I had chanced upon the

very same bottle on my way to lunch

in Jacksonville, rolling about in the street

the wonders of Wonderland imprisoned

in a bottle labeled Imagine Me!

And how it ended up in the expired place

just down the block?—it was quite misplaced

in time, see, and quite lost. I remember

talking to the rabbit about something,

though I don’t remember what. I had the

odd feeling that I was Alice, and Alice was me,

and that someone was telling me to hurry up,

then almost immediately I awoke as if

from a dream, with the peculiar bottle in

my hand and Imagine Me in front of my eyes.

So it is no surprise that they have found

this wonder-bottle there, no surprise at all,

because something that does not belong

in time will find itself perfectly belonging

in the expired place just down the block.