Anything That Looks Like It Should Be Alive Is Alive

This is a developmental stage
In children, according to textbooks.
They shed it, according to the shrinks.

But let’s back that up a bit, shall we?
We’re interested in the simile.
That which looks like it should be alive—

What is that? How large a set is that?
Where are the boundaries to looking
As if you should be alive, but aren’t?

Remember that giant face on Mars,
The happenstance of a few shadows?
Even the should here’s interesting;

A profoundly interesting word
Should is. What has no business seeming
Anything but something’s that alive.

Those curtains hanging from the railings,
Stirring their peripheral visions—
Don’t they look like they should be alive?