It started with the aglet of the lace
painted upon the left black shoe
on the foot of his carved leg.
After an unknown interval
an entire shoelace turned real,
moved to an intrusive breeze.
The strings were still there
when behind a knot of wood
his heart began to beat.
The right eye moistened first,
saw the crease of flesh
and a single blue vein underneath.
One day the finger nail
of his right thumb
started to grow and curl.
A strand of blue-black hair
at the back of his head stirred;
a lash of his eye fell free, fluttered,
landed upon his wooden cheek.
The right foot bent, returned.
His left hand made its first fist.
His ears filled with wax
weeks before his bottom and top lips
cracked and split
and a full year, at least,
before the tongue, like a debutant,
shyly poked between.
It was a sunny day
when he first began to think;
rained heavily the afternoon
all his wood was finally skin,
yet the tale is easier told when,
with the wave of a wand,
and a hoarse whisper of a spell,
the puppet can speak.
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