The Real Underground

Me, a bit long for your liking
“But fear not,” you assured,
"Like Procrustes, I’ve got the perfect bed."
so I remained, your quirky guest.

We lived on Congress Street
beside the murky Jersey sea.

The box kite flew the colors of summer
and the mackerel shined like silver coins.
How comic, the trot of sandpipers
on little stilt sticks, daring to be.

Calico Scout took Holmes’ meal from our stoop
but later, they lay languid in grass, fat beside thin,
and Mr. Gentry fixed my hopeless MG in his shed
beaming as he wheeled her shining into sunlight.

I ran in lonesome autumn
along the white surf, breathing,
breathing the blackness, the moon a lantern
hung low above a cold Atlantic.

We prickled with beauty and horror at the news:
a trawler taken down in rolling winter sea
while we sailed the den on sweetbread and tea,
could it be more perfect?

The carousel circled three seasons,
horses content to go nowhere.
I said they were beautiful,
and you replied, “how like you.”

But it was me who danced naked on the sand
every flaw under the sun, I allowed,
and you who turned away,
a quick clean bleeding cut
and I hung there, dangling.



Note: Procrustes kept a house by the side of the road where he offered hospitality to passing strangers, who were invited in for a pleasant meal and a night's rest in his very special bed. Procrustes described it as having the unique property that its length exactly matched whomsoever lay down upon it. What Procrustes didn't volunteer was the method by which this "one-size-fits-all" was achieved, namely as soon as the guest lay down Procrustes went to work upon him, stretching him on the rack if he was too short for the bed or chopping off his legs if he was too long.