Hornbeck -  To My Disappointment

 

I know I see you, Hornbeck- you never leave the corner where you glare -  yet, clear as day I heard

 

the creak of boards. Where are your hands, Hornbeck? You stifle them in allspice-scented linings -  in pockets

 

filled with coffin-balls and nutmeg shavings. Stil -  I am unreal to you, even as I entertain your weaknesses,

 

Hornbeck- the ordinary pleasures of the naked dead. Who is your Mister there (Not shy, we’re understood)?

 

Hornbeck, it is, I answer -  without his fawning Missus, minus their tiresome brood. Your charm, Hornbeck, is hoary frost on air. Unintelligible stains on crumpled paper -  Tell me you care!  Not a man, Hornbeck,

 

if you were a bird you would be a grosbeak - plain, puce, earth-bound, silent as a turd.

 

© 2020 Karen Morris Poet