Letters to Guns

Postmortem of President Abraham Lincoln as Observed by a Passing Trawler

60 Postmortem of President Abraham Lincoln as Observed by a Passing Trawler As the streets flooded, and the stars tacked over them, so the country set adrift on Mr. Lincoln’s face. An aid riding with the martyred president, observed sea water pouring from the back of his head. “I recall the carriage suffused with perfumes of the Atlantic. I then sensed a coldness by my ankle and discovered several small fish had loosed from my president’s vest to gasp about the floor.” By the time it had reached the White House, the hearse had to be cleared of a multitude of bright shells before the body was removed. Attempts were made to occupy the First Lady by holding an empty nautilus to the storm of her ear, that she might calm and permit herself to be borne away. she would not be removed from her husband’s side nor distracted from her peculiar prayers for his soul, “I hear the fair color of my Lord’s gown of glory. It shadows me from sorrow, it shines me with His love. . .” On relinquishing him to his many doctors, she was observed to faint upon a bed of squid outside the east Room. Thus startled the creatures but briefly emulated the colors of her gown, and then again became the floor. Assistant autopsy surgeon edward Curtis was put in charge of recovering the bullet and any spanish doubloons which may have materialized in the geocentric tumult of the president’s unmaking, these last to be applied to the costs of committing his remains to the earth. sovereigns were not found in the president’s brain, though Curtis wrote in his log, “suddenly the bullet dropped out through my fingers and fell, breaking the solemn silence of the room with its clatter. There it lay upon the white china, a little black mass 61 no bigger than a mackerel’s eye, yet the cause of such mighty changes in the world as we may never realize.” Japan upon egypt China crashing into dover! The fatter the moon, the hungrier the tide. How the ground shook, how the towers swayed, how the gravediggers plighted. no sooner had the president’s coffin been set in the ground, than it began to bury itself beneath gluts of sand squalling from it’s seams. Blessings were invaded by gulls who attacked mourners and polluted the eulogy with their cries. Mrs. Lincoln endeavored to sing in their manner, but they heeded not her hymns, if that was what they were. Prayer, like all music is a thing described only by more of itself. I, who was not there and know what I saw, who calls attention to himself only now the bereaved are all below, I am just a swell, a trawler, a Jonah not welcome in church or before the mast. nor will I ever be if I keep breaking my lines. God ignores poets, but only in public; at night He casts us fathoms of rope. Solvitur Ambulando It is solved by walking, so saith the statues in the park. They pose, they posture, but dare not wave as I pass, sorting out the starfish from the stars, the assassins from the actors, the faces of great men from their cold coins. ...