He’s a magician, a wizard, a sorcerer,
                out of a dog’s fairytale. --Mikhail Bulgakov

The boy with white hair listened.
Soon the air tightened
into a ball of foil, gum wrappers,
dispersing light across his mother’s hand.
“Tenable,” the red-faced administrator crowed,
his hands shuffling change in his pockets,
the awning crenellating the word.
Around him, the women unfastened their purses;
the children played with a harpoon.
“Everyone left of center must clap
their hands to my voice.
The vices of mice must total the pages ripped
from the Common Book of Prayer.”
The mother quickly handed him her papers,
her eyes averting from the pink and yellow forms.
The boy fastened the bent staples into a chain.
“How lovely,” the man exclaimed, “the beauty of utility.”