Ayudeme!

(from a small plastic box at the check-out aisle)

Even the size nine feet at the end of the day come out

of the size six shoes

The large square peg stops attempting

the small round hole

After mere hours, our heads emerge from

the straining birth canal

Diamonds are finally mined from eons

as claustrophobic coal

Luckily, the pressed butterfly falls out

while looking up the word "hegira" from Webster's

And always, mercifully, there will be another

infinitesimal pause between tick and tock

The pea has days off between nights

beneath the princess

But without mercy, more pained than a New Yorker

pinned under the Statue of Liberty's stiletto heel,

is the lonely, trapped,

Mexican Jumping

Bean