Speech Therapy

The ugly duckling remained ugly

its whole life but found others

as ugly as itself, I guess that’s the message.

Smoke rises from the heads in the backyard.

Do you think if I hang around here long enough

someone will proffer a muffin,

one skulking shadow to another?

Soon, my shoes will be part of the populous dirt.

Have I learned all the wrong lessons,

the ones you shouldn’t know until

the last dew-clogged lawn is mowed

and the sun goes down on the ruined battlements?

Why was I given a toy train if not

to stage stupendous wrecks? Sure,

I can walk by the sea holding a hand

with as much melancholy as the next fellow,

substituting the cries of slammed waves

for the droll adumbrations of distraught

skeletons, the day taking on the sheen

of a stone removed from the mouth

and skipped between the breakers jubilant and sunk.