A Reply To “M.M.”

("Ode to a Strawberry Box ” P.I.M, 22/11/’33.) Oh! heartless and unfeeling! Thou Who laugh at mal-de-mer. As one of “them”

I say “It isn’t done!”

I read your lines appreciatively, What time my steward, swaying, said the thing for me Was pickled on-i-on!

I read and, reading, thought “This gentle soul Lacked, as I lack myself, complete con trol Of little Mary.”

But no. Indecent Scribe! YOU never knew The peristaltic turn that quickens to A ship’s vagary.

YOUR nose enjoyed no fatty galley odour!

YOUR cabin knew not Worcester sauce, nor soda, Nor eke Pot. Brom.!

For here’s a paradox— ’Tis only they who HAVEN’T been right through it Can tell the truth about it. (I eschew it!) And certes your gentle Muse would quite taboo it Just coming from A Strawberry Box!

“Nux Vom.”