When the civil war rail car rolled
Out to sea as planned, could be I blamed
For fearing things got out of hand?
The tracks were laid upon sand.
Bedroom lamps would not light up.
We wrapped small toys in colored thread.
The lay of the land was thin enough
To see babies in their beds.
What ensued when a boy cooked up
Vegetables in a Tupperware bowl?
A mess in the ancestral kitchen,
Volcanoed produce on the stove.
We understood you had to find an angle and frame your performance properly. Even then a high dive often ended with your ass on a splintered plank.
And me in a seersucker suit,
Meeting my maker from school.
Who was the sucker and who was the seer
As a cataclysm rolled through the room?
Lightning flashed across the screens,
Flames reflected in window panes.
Pin-striped spokespersons were dispatched
You could smack them with a hurricane.
But my gimlet-eyed judgment
Poked unreliable holes
From which to see in the moment
What really mattered most
To the well-dressed men who met the train
Brandishing Mason Pearson hairbrushes.
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