The Academic Sigh

Some students were stretching a professor on a medieval torture rack. He had offered himself to show them how an academic might be stretched beyond his wildest dreams like a piece of chewing gum.
         And as they turned the wheel the professor was getting longer and longer.
         Don’t make me too long, or I’ll look kind of goofy, sighed the professor as he grew longer and longer.

         Suddenly something snaps.
         What happened? sighs the professor from the rack.
         We were just stretching an academic when suddenly something snapped; you may have heard it ...
         Yes, I was there. Don’t you remember? sighs the professor.
         And then we heard an academic sigh ...
         Yes, I heard it, too, sighs the professor, it seemed to come from the rack where I was being stretched beyond my wildest dreams like a piece of chewing gum ...

Copyright Credit: “The Academic Sigh” from The Tormented Mirror: Poems by Russell Edson © 2001. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Used by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.
Source: The Tormented Mirror (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001)