Iris

Iris used to draw in the sandbox.

She placed her circular house in the middle of a dusty dune,

         on a ledge flattened by slicing wind,

     because she used to feel like a juillienned carrot,

whenever she went outside.

She had a little brother who she called her “pupil.”

     And he loved to sit by the sandbox,

         and worm his way into the dirt until only his butt remained.

Image: Landscape agate (‘Peak’) from Mexico, from the collection of Roger Caillois. First published in Caillois’s book ‘L’écriture des pierres’, 1970.