Jake's Flea Market

the crown of elsinore is a wooden floor

as fortinbras still wears
elsinore like he wears the diadem
of denmark on his head

and on his finger the gold band
that weds him to the queen of norway

as he wears what he wears
to appear king

it’s those planks over which i once walked

on which for two nights i stood
with the guardsmen and over the parapet watched
nothing approach
across that plain toward the moat
and the bridge to the gates of elsinore

those boards to which the memory
of old denmark came in the nervous dark

that stone mortared house wears
that wooden ground round its head

that house is crowned a castle