"Hamlet Mnemonic 3" by Deborah Woodard
Don't send that letter across oceans—with cans of snuff and tuna fish—to a world of orchards and a picket fence.Hats are no longer precious. Thought's a handful of dirt. The topknotI felt for was livid as the quail's torn throat. Cover the genitals, properwords gathered like a sop. Can we divvy up this field, this bee box?My neck was lassoed by my shirt collar; the button in the back, a nub of guilt.Yes, I was getting cranky, but I wondered about the inside scoop.I cooled my heels where bike paths circumnavigatethe pomp of two chimneys becoming one. Widow, I still cut you off!I could play both parts. Be the violin and the bow enduring its vibrations.Be the touchstone of the day as I shambled in. Ophelia keeps trackof her periods on a shed wall. Her chalk intrigues these neighbors of mine—those newts with their drowsy bureaus.In the cubbyhole of the watched, watch out. Test the rotted string of childhood.Seek in old cobwebs the squatter. Precision is necessary, along with heftgoverned by fierce bowling masters.He: dank moon, a nerve.She: quills, cream, a cat's eye reflecting the wit I lacked.The quail shucks its topknot. Mom croons to the wayward reef.Reeling past with the castaways, I ask myself: Hamlet, why were R. & G. so dense?So stuck on truisms? Had the trail grown cold? Leaf, unfurl. Open out into arborswhere my ransom note was penned. Ach! I struggle to my knees and forge my stepdad'ssignature. As I swim a stretch of green, I rethink the hand, the mansard roof.I tighten my phantom crutches. Nothing for it but to lurch, heart pounding.