This Poem is a Paper Bag

This poem is a paper bag.
If you look inside
it may look as if there's nothing in it
but if you go on looking
you're bound to see something:
a few crumbs, maybe.
You can dig your fingers
down to the bottom
and gather up the crumbs
and eat them.
Mmmm.
Nice.


You can scrunch it up
or fold it up
and take it almost anywhere.
You might be walking along
and you have a thought about
a room or a thumb or a cave.
You could put that in the paper bag.
Or maybe you're walking along
and it's the paper bag you think of.
And the paper bag makes you
think of something else that's like
a paper bag...
like a cave, or a mouth, or a glove.

And you can turn a paper bag into other things
like a paper airplane,
a hat,
or a boat.
A boat that sinks.
Very
slowly.
Never mind.

If you make holes in it
and draw on it
it can be a mask.
Put it on.
Now your head's inside the paper bag.

This poem is a paper bag.