Pinocchio's Evolution:

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.