I know how Pinocchio felt
the night he prayed to be a real boy.
As he slept,
feelings played along the fibers of his arms
   like flames...
hinges dimpled into rounded knees.
        Long-hardened sap began to pulse and flow,
        bringing strange dreams and restless sleep.
        In his trunk, carved from a sapling pine,
        concentric rings began to soften,
        dropping one by one the walls
        around his heart.
In his dreams
he saw himself
naked in a crowd;
        but when he tried to run
        the strings were gone
        and down he clattered.
        "How can I move without my strings?
         What do I know of being real?"
         he thought in terror.
Yet, as the painted cheeks
   faded into peach,
and the jointed mouth
   relaxed into tender flesh,
the curve of a real boy's smile
   lit the soft face.
Gepetto, whose loving hands
   had shaped his form
   and carved his limbs
   would help him learn
             to walk
                  and run
                       and dance
                            and sing
                                 and cry
                                      and be a man.
He stirred, brushed away
   a tangled pile of strings
   and clacking wooden sticks,

   woke,
        sat up,
             to stare amazed

into his Father's loving face.

Ann Dickinson Sargent