Ramshackle, a poem by Abhinav Aradhi

 

Ramshackle

Little ol’ me was standing there,

A picture of puritanical pride.

Hair in a scalp-hugging bonnet,

And a coiled, steel-iron bun of strands on top.

 

A bleak, black dress,

That caresses the floor with passion,

And lets not an inch of skin see daylight,

For my knees and shoulders are vampires.

 

Shoes like my mother’s,

Giant slips of things, they are.

They’re a little too large for me,

But the man says he won’t buy new ones.

 

The man walks in every evening,

Tosses his cruel straw hat onto the table,

And takes a seat at the worn, beaten table,

Expecting a plate before him.

 

Hands trembling,

Dainty hands place a dish before him,

Then they recede as though they have touched

The loins of Tartarus.

 

The man takes a diligent bite,

And the dainty hands twist an apron,

And the sound of a crying babe echoes in the night,

And the dog starts baying at the fluorescent moon.

 

The man scowls in gastronomic appall,

And the dainty hands raise up in defense.

The sound of the crying babe reaches the moon,

Who is locked in battle with a baying hound.

 

The sounds of a scuffle,

And the cry of a babe,

The ferocity of a horrified mutt,

And a moon scorned.

 

Pleas of forgiveness,

And the wails of a babe,

A siren goes off in the dawn,

Of the chaotic law.

 

The officer steps out,

And heads right inside a ramshackle abode,

Past a wicker door that reeks of malevolence,

And past a hound laying faint of exhaustion.

 

He walks past a crib,

In which lays a perfectly still babe,

Eyes wide as the moon unfurled,

Mouth curved in a sinister smile. 

 

He finds a man with brutish hands

Wrapped around the neck of a bonnet-wearing freak,

Whose dress still touches the floor, whose shoes are too large, and whose hands are far too dainty.

Domestic disturbance, or the grisly remains of the nuclear?

 

The cry of a babe pierces the picturesque day.