I ordered this, clean wood box

Square as a chair and almost too heavy to lift.

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I would say it was the coffin of a midget

Or a square baby

Were there not such a din in it.

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The box is locked, it is dangerous.

I have to live with it overnight

And I can't keep away from it.

There are no windows, so I can't see what is in there.

There is only a little grid, no exit.

I put my eye to the grid.

It is dark, dark,

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With the swarmy feeling of African hands

Minute and shrunk for export,

Black on black, angrily clambering.

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How can I let them out?

It is the noise that appalls me most of all,

The unintelligible syllables.

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It is like a Roman mob,

Small, taken one by one, but my god, together!

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I lay my ear to furious Latin.

I am not a Caesar.

I have simply ordered a box of maniacs.

They can be sent back.

They can die, I need feed them nothing, I am the owner.

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I wonder how hungry they are.

I wonder if they would forget me

If I just undid the locks and stood back and turned into a tree.

There is the laburnum, its blond colonnades,

And the petticoats of the cherry.

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They might ignore me immediately

In my moon suit and funeral veil.

I am no source of honey

So why should they turn on me?

Tomorrow I will be sweet God, I will set them free.

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The box is only temporary.

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