Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Child’s Thanksgiving…
WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY, YOUNG MAN!?
Sort of like Christmas, with its own small joys
Turkey and dressing, but not any toys
Grandpa at dinner babbles about his bowels
With a chorus of most dramatic vowels
Grandma discourses on her surgeries
The latest ones implanted mechanical knees
Mother and Big Sis are busy in the kitchen
With a whole lotta hissin’ and (rhymes with kitchen)
“WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY, YOUNG MAN!?
DO YOU WANT TO FEEL THE SWIPE OF MY HAND!?”
“They get it from those app things today -
I think you need to take his ‘phone away”
The uncles thunder on about politics
And any who disagree are Bolsheviks
The aunts all painted like marionettes
Escape to the lawn for their cigarettes
And I am exiled to the children’s table
With snotty little cousins, like unclean elves
And eye-brow-warned to behave ourselves -
And that’s the end of this Thanksgiving fable
