Let Us Consider

Let Us Consider
By Russell Edson

Let us consider the farmer who makes his straw hat his   
sweetheart; or the old woman who makes a floor lamp her son; 
or the young woman who has set herself the task of scraping 
her shadow off a wall.... 

    Let us consider the old woman who wore smoked cows’ 
tongues for shoes and walked a meadow gathering cow chips 
in her apron; or a mirror grown dark with age that was given 
to a blind man who spent his nights looking into it, which 
saddened his mother, that her son should be so lost in 
vanity.... 

    Let us consider the man who fried roses for his dinner, 
whose kitchen smelled like a burning rose garden; or the man 
who disguised himself as a moth and ate his overcoat, and for   
dessert served himself a chilled fedora....