Reynolds and Midway 50

     To cast in my lot with Jekyll, was to die to those appetites which I had long secretly indulged and had of late begun to pamper. To cast it in with Hyde, was to die to a thousand interests and aspirations, and to become, at a blow and forever, despised and friendless. - Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

   O Jubilee, O Jubilee at last,

says Reynolds, laughing, raising his corded arms

as he goes dancing o'er the limen fast,

   shaking his booty. Midway's softer charms

are flattened in the captain's chair, his silky

satin smoothness squashed. Dante alarms

   him, yet he reads with zest, his milky

skin aprickle as the hairs stand up,

those few that sprout upon his erstwhile bulky

   thighs and calves. With mustard in a cup,

and garlic-tincted pretzels, he continues,

dipping each, with relish. Ransom's grub

   occurs to him and floods his withering sinews—

or, more correctly, his dendrites and neurons—

then sup, then sop. Most literary venues

   revere the master. Upper echelons

convinced Midway that to ignore the poet

for much longer would be the direst of sins,

   which brings us neatly to—I didn't know it

when we started out, you must believe me,

and still I think that Christ the Lord will show it

   at some point hence, unless my wits deceive me—

the topic of sin. As creatures, we are broken,

divided, Janus-faced, since Adam and Eve. Me-

   thinks, he says, to coin a rhyming token,

and there again, también a wee puníto,

that Genesis unto the world hath spoken

   truly and with might, that Adamito

lent his ear to a conning sibillance,

and tainted us; but Eve, remember, she too

   bent an ear, and lost our innocence.

We're in this lot together, sinners and salt

of the earth, and no man hath sole governance

   of body and mind. And yes, who is John Galt?

Good question that, for none of us are he,

and Adam's fault is everybody's fault,

   and no one's, in continuum, for we

are you are me and we are birds of a feather,

until that Kingdom come, triumphantly,

   when Christ returns and we all come together.         †

7.24.14