Sonnet with Swan and Long Tall Sally

--Robert Thomas

What if we’re the crux, the diamond linchpin?

What if creatures in other galaxies

have a vague sense that something is missing,

but don’t know it’s Little Richard, Shakespeare,

and cornbread with plum jam? They have their songs,

but like the Rolling Stones’ Voodoo Lounge, not

Exile on Main Street, or as if Monet

stopped painting before the water lilies;

their idea of sex is what dogs do or

Nixons. Their squidy eyes would see the most

gauche galoot of us as Baryshnikov

dancing Swan Lake on gold wires, dulcimer

strings over water. And for what that dark

lake is made of, their language has no words.