An Interesting Question
by Theodora Goss

My mind
scurries and scurries around
like a squirrel in a cage.

Stop it, I say. Stay still
for a moment.
Don’t you realize
that you are the cage
as well as the squirrel?

It sits back on its haunches
and stares at me
with eyes like sesame seeds,
black and shining,
flicking its brown tail.

If I am the squirrel
and the cage,
then who, it says,
are you?

(The image is Red Squirrel by Hans Hoffmann.)