once upon a time machine
he fashioned from a box
with nothing more than crayons
and a cache of broken clocks,
the little boy went scooting
down the corridors of time
and it was all so easy
for a young and open mind.
but now the boy’s a physicist
and studies all his days
to learn to build a time machine
in complicated ways,
and every day it’s clearer
what his facts and figures mean:
that only little boys can build
a real time machine.