Smaller

His head is. You can brush
the thick fur back to show the line
of his jaw, the way his eyes are full
of sparking branches and somehow bigger
than his TARDIS skull. And my memory
is, or strangely shaped, the way algae
might show the imprint of a tossed-in twig
that sank, palimpsest, into the pond.

I thought a gleaming jar might hold
enough, a salt cellar squatting on the sideboard.
Twist a silvery chain around an agrafe
and wait for the moment nothing
else will fit. A stopper in a bottle
in your nautilus ear. A cork’s
fractals chasing off into the green.