The white queen Caroling through the mall, we come across the costume store and see through the glass darkly that it is lost in a children’s book, all rabbits in waistcoats and watch fobs. We find the chess board, life-sized and in cool marble; hear her looking for her daughter, and counting the hours backward toward yesterday, complaining of bespectacled sheep, the red queen and turning into a porcupine.
Was at the airport book store and they had a section on Alice in Wonderland....
i love the image of “caroling through the mall”…all the possibilities for “caroling” (including the commercial one)
the linebreak of “through the glass/darkly” gave me the chills
i love the turn in the second line of the fourth stanza…from the “we” browsing through the mall to the “we” of the “her” looking for her “daughter” (i felt like i’d just slipped down that hole once I’d crossed over that semi-colon)