Or that’s what they seemed like.
Duty has always been your watchword, Troy,
Said his absent mother, Aphrodite.
Duty will guide you now.
Abigail and a sleepy gang of gatherers
Plucked tender jewels from wet branches
On a Hudson River hillside
As fog lifted over the Catskills.
Jane had just about enough of Jeremiah
And his snotty remarks about how she ought to be able
To handle the job even though she never played
Any varsity high school sports.
In the seaside café the children were calm
Before it was time to board the ship.
Edna and Junior took off their shoes and socks
And draped themselves around the floor.
Arrived the Skipper, a round-faced genial
Fellow whom everybody knew from somewhere.
He made the rounds of passengers,
Gently lowering expectations.
The folding tables continued to fall
Like dominoes all over the muddy parade ground
Whose idiotic idea was it, wondered Clay,
To do Thanksgiving outdoors with a hundred guests.
Sherman’s childhood home was transformed,
Transparent plastic walls inside and out.
His mother and father resumed the youth
That always seemed so old to the kids.
Bernice couldn’t decide between two schools
Of thought: Make a plan for a team
Or go it alone. In hallways packed with busy bees
She was new and didn’t know
What materials were hers to use.
Silly goose, they were all available.
Still Ned liked her blue ocean waves
And her affection for theatricality.
Manfred wrapped sea stones in cotton prints,
Made artificial environments,
A single boat spared by the storm.
But Shirley had her doubts about
That gilded grand piano dinette set.
