21

    Deep in his mine, Charlie lay perched on a scaffold,
intent on his labor of love, his masterpiece, the Magdalen-
as-Fallen-Woman-Repentant Almost Gored by A Mastodon-
Blessedly-Cuffed-from-Behind by the Silver Shackles of
Jesus-Androgynous.

    How devoted to his hobby Charlie ferociously was!
Many were the nights the gracious Mrs. Gould spent
fending for herself with the gimpy misanthropic Doctor,
their homogenized houseguest. The surly, withdrawn old
medical man adored Mrs. Gould, his hostess; he would say
(with that wry, habitual shrug so characteristic of him),
he confessed, he knew next to for nothing about art.

    One day the winter cold snapped the aluminum
on that scaffold. Charlie was left hanging by a stalactite!
And a stalagmite (one in each hand)! Until he was
rescued by a blackened crowd of Costaguanian riffraff,
who had been observing him there, regularly, on
their lunchbreak.

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Henry Gould | Island Road 22
Contents | Mudlark No. 6