Juan de Mairena: A Childhood Memory
Till he hears soft falling footsteps,
and hears a latchkey churned about,
this bad bad little boy won't dare
budge his body, or breathe out.

Little John the lonely boy,
mind in a fugue of mice and clocks,
hears the woodworm in the closet,
the grease-moth in the cardboard box.

Jailbird John the little man
listens to time that will not stop,
to the groaning of mosquitoes
in the droning spinning-top.

The boy is in his room and dark,
the door latched shut by mother's key.
He is the poet, the pure poet
who sings: "It's time! It's time and me."