The Kobolds

Will they tip the scales —
seven almost-identical men
with identical stories?
True, none of them witnessed the crimes,
but each looks stricken as he speaks
of the aftermath: her alabaster body found
slumped on the floor … three frantic attempts
to give her breath … their final grief.
Then, after what seemed years, a miraculous
cloud frosting the lid of the coffin.
They address each member of the jury,
going over each detail, re-enacting the trauma
till exhaustion sets in, they must be
helped from the stand, gazing with brimming
eyes at the pale girl in sunglasses:
they'd do anything for dear Ms White…
Their testimony builds, the court held captive
by their nuggety koans and cryptic saws:
each unearthing a hoard of word-jewels
then breaking the tension with a joke…
The court record spills from a machine:
an endless print-striped white tongue — hypnotic!
And they're a media sensation! Everyone loves
these characters with their collarless working men's shirts,
their silver-stained fingernails, their trick smiles.
At press conferences, in interviews, they talk
on and on — refining the story until
it reaches a classic shape:
The brute
shock of it! — their angel-housekeeper lifeless
on the floor; the coffin they fashioned
so as to worship her beauty always…
 From a hilltop, its lid reflected clouds
and thistledown, swallows and wind-torn leaves.
Now the prince in his magnificent puce
costume riding out from the forest, across
the slowly greening landscape, ascending to where
the seven kobolds circled her frozen form.
When, finally, they gave him the coffin,
the prince stumbled on a root, dislodged
the sliver — Snow White could breathe again!
And wanted justice! So here they were…
Audiences went wild. Later, there would be
documentaries on kobolds, studies of mining conditions
in their region, a movie, a mini-series.
All very well, but by the end
they itch to be back home in
their squat cottage — and even more, underground:
trekking through caves of slippery pointed beards,
slow-motion tears, to probe white veins
that will yield the deepest, most dazzling
blue of oceans they have never seen.