Gregory O’Brien

A BURNING TYRE, NUKU‘ALOFA

With guavas and Pablo Neruda, we came
to the greenness

of this land, but our attempts
to meet the king

came to nothing. Confined to the blackness
of my shell, I was a crab

tied in red string, well-positioned
at the royal feast, but not

as I would have wished.
That I might speak

briefly with his highness
of such things

as weigh upon me. To the foreshore
I fled, while in the distance

his crab-shaped crown shook
its pincers at the sun.

Unfathomable morning,
these things heavy

upon my heart, I sought counsel
amidst the graves

of his ancestors—four corners of the sky
held in place

by volcanic boulders—and beneath
the unmoving clock faces

of his kingdom. Minute hands, hour hands . . .
I waved my pincers

in bafflement. Together, you and I
sought instead

the company of shellfish—those lowliest
citizens of this island—

in the mudflats where immigrant families
competed with pigs

for mussels. Later, you were a weather balloon
that you might gain

his attention, but as the day wore on
you were caught in an updraft

above the Cathedral of
the Burning Tyre—and it was not a done thing

to be higher than
his kingliness.

Nightfall, we were both
brass instruments

of the Royal Army Band—that we might
phrase our questions

in a language he understood. But,
for the sound of ourselves

we could not hear
a word of his reply. Not for

the sirens of a sinking ferry, brakes
and stammering exhaust of royal carriage—

a London cab crossing
the potholed kingdom.

Author’s Note

Sources

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