Thursday, October 1, 2009

i would sue the city if i wasn't so tired.

there was a lobster boy

with very lobster hands

should you look his way

you'd see the fabric of a man


he lived in any town

like all the rest

and smiled with his feelers

and laughed with the jest


but every night

before he went to sleep

in a boiling pot

of water, he would creep


to the edge

screaming out and

into the night

because lo--

this human world was not

is not

made for lobster boys


there were things we could've done

to welcome lobster hands

but we did not

do not-

despite our demands, and so


all of our wishes

of love for this boy,

our watching him

squirm about with joy--meant nothing

when night fell


(and it always fell)

because the screams

would go unreconciled


and his little lobster heart

which we told him to conceal

would shrivel like a prune

in spite of all his zeal


as he wrote his story

onto the air (of the night

not to inspire

or aide in the fight


but) to terrify

future lobster boys

as they lay awake

cascaded in noise-


the harpooned gasps

of a dying thing,

and a city looking

for another king.