-southend rhapsody-

after you eat the entire box of jellied "DOTS",

(it’s fun to put as many in your mouth

as humanly possible, roll them around

with your tongue 'till the sides of it hurt,

sucking-up the sweetened saliva

before it dribbles from your mouth)

open the flap at one end

and with your fingertips rip-

away a small square at the far

edge of the flap to serve as a mouthpiece,—

then crease again carefully and refold

the flap, slipping it back into the slot

from whence it came, so the box

looks to have the little dark entrance

to a long defunct anthracite coal mine.

testing both ends for fit along the seams,
blow mightily into the little hole.

now multiply the high-pitched squeal emitting

(a squealing more tortured

than that of the slit pig) by one hundred
or more, and you’re probably

a kid at the Plaza Theater on Saturday afternoon.

an old American poem-writer (me) once opined:
“If you shake a full box of "DOTS" nothing happens...”

this is because, like the nuclei of atoms,

or Homo habilis, the "DOTS" seek to bond within

the community of their own kind; the same would be true

for ballroom dancers and certain groupings of Italians.

but an empty box of "DOTS" will produce a sound

not to be reproduced by even the highest

registers of the long and narrow reed instruments.

next week's lesson: “why flatten the empty popcorn box?”


 Quequechan / the early years