Quatrain Wreck

Gavotte? Perhaps: might hit the spot.
You regularly – once a week –
seek some exquisite metered trot
to keep your fairies dancing: peek

around the curtain to make sure
that they obey like Ariel
at Prospero’s mandate: procure
a whip to beat them into hell

if they so much as trip a toe
awry to tap an altered beat
or carol out a note to throw
the rhyme off: make each elf retreat

in shame if any let you down:
tie the creatures into corsets –
squeezing the amorphous out: crown
their heads until not one forgets

who’s given them a purpose: be
the be-all and the end-all whose
persistence lends reality
to every breath they take: their shoes

and tops and socks and little caps
like punctuation marks give proof
of your brave war against relapse
into chaos: you are their roof

and floor and walls: you give the stuff
they need to: wait – a note?

“Fuck you,” they wrote.

Ran off in a huff.

Gavotte?

Guess not.


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