“Faster, faster” cries the manic queen “faster”
to obedient Alice.
The goal still flies ahead.
Faster, faster, to keep up with the Joneses,
with our father’s ghost, with the Enemy Over There,
faster to the moon, to Mars,
to a peradventure satellite (faster, faster)
of Alpha Centauri (faster), of some guessed star
in Andromeda’s nebula.
The goal whisks on,
the tip of our own fool tail.