Jake's Flea Market

before it could be read
from ambassadors’ letters to norway   

to poland   to the emperor   everywhere     
that his nearly old mother’s   newly widowed     or

before there’s time for uncle claudius to walk
mother gertrude on his arm in the garden   

to walk ‘til her smile suns through the rain of her tears
and she becomes again beautiful   desireable

‘til the night clothes of mourning fall away
and she rises again in a dawn of wedding gown     or  

before political polonius has time to sit the queen
down from her sorrow into a chair of distraction

in a makeshift theatre in the sound resonant atrium   teach
against oedipus   teach against a welcome home for hamlet     or 

before ambitious fortinbras arrives to escort
the widow through the doors onto the dancefloor   dance

he needed to hurry home he said   he said he wished
yorick was still alive   yorick who his mother loved