Tranquility reigned in Swamptown, YO,
population 2 0 9.
Crocamama waited on a long, wavy line
to pay her water tax,
clasping a handbag fabricated from
the well-tanned hide
of that Yorkshire terrier
who never denied he'd found it scarier
trying to swim
with four big teeth sunk into him
than not; his supple, hirsute skin
now filled with gold doubloons,
former legal tender in some
tough, perhaps illegal double dealings of
long-dead Spanish merchants;
coin recently sucked
from the rank crustacean muck
of a sunken wreck by Martin Searles,
the charming treasure-seeker,
whose million-dollar hunch
resulted in (Oh, God! No!)
quite a sodden bunch
of pockets stuffed with coin
and misdirected crabs
(and aren't those pearls that were his eyes?)
she'd joined that day for lunch.