The Duckling - Apologies to Edgar Allan Poe
Warning - Don't read The Raven and Watch Hitchcock on the same night.
Once before my bedtime, nearing, which I dreaded, fazed and fearing,
Stories mother would read me before she closed and locked my bedroom door —
While I washed up in the water, could mom have drawn it any hotter?
Before me swam a rubber duckling, chuckling as my mother shut the door
“‘Tis some water fowl”, I muttered, “which mother bought me from the store.
Only this and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I can place it - the sad night Mother would misplace it;
Or entirely erase it; of her mind remaining nothing more.
I lay in bed, mother tucking, on feathers of mother’s plucking
Time for your book, said mother clucking, clucking as she locked the bedroom door —
I’ll read “Make Way for Ducklings” and then warm milk she began to pour -
all across the bedroom floor.
Assuredly, I felt no sorrow, as mother left me till the morrow
Sighing - buying time – which maybe I could only hope to borrow;
I heard my monstrous mother screaming, or maybe Tippi Hedren streaming
as Hitchcock’s “Birds” was beaming from the TV laying on the floor—
“’Tis just Hitchcock’s “Birds” beaming from the TV laying on the floor” -
This it is and nothing more.”
Inside that book peered at me smiling, a crazed duck that set me dialing
911 and protective services to frantically implore
The feeling in my stomach sinking, “I need a friend”, I was thinking
Staring wildly at this ghastly mallard who chilled me to the core
Then, at once, I saw it, heard it, this grinning duck needn’t chill me to the core
as he said, “I will be your friend forevermore”.
Copyright ©
David Crandall
|