To follow all the wendings of your mind,
girl, can't be done. I get delirious.
Your logic’s near impossible to find
once lost—like zany squirrels in trees who fuss

and scuttle, stop, then hurtle through the air,
landing in some lank poplar, yards from where
they started. Whoosh! Boughs quiver; leaves fall, shorn,
catching on stems. But branches, clean or torn,

reveal no squirrels. I can only guess
their whereabouts from rustles in their wake
and crows’ and jaybirds’ cackles of distress,
betraying the manic gang beneath the shake

of twigs. Now, why they'd run up that one limb,
then down, then up—or even run at all,
I understand no more than I do you.

And why a fatter squirrel chased a slim
dark-tailed one round in spirals to the tall
far crooked branch that angles to one side—

and not a lower, plainer, easier route
along the branch that's lateral and wide
and leads straight to its endpoint like a chute—

girl, that’s a mystery without a clue.