Kind of brick

I play now with Legos
as much as I can justify

— the kits that can be called
sophisticated and beautiful,
a kind of calming therapy —

but I’ve never forgotten
the moment in my bedroom,

small custom-built spacecraft
in hand, when I felt suddenly
that it no longer made sense

to simply imagine, to clash
the minifigures at each other

and create boundless stories
from nothing, the moment
I needed rules and structure,

the horrible banes of adulthood
I knew even then were a tragedy.