After the Fall

After the Fall

I tiptoe ’round the coffee shop—

I fell there recently.

At home I grab the shower bar

As if it sought to flee.

A rumpled rug’s a Claymore mine

Concealed on battlefields.

A sidewalk thick with fallen leaves?

More slick banana peels.

The books I’ve piled around my desk—

The notebooks, magazines—

Are lying there to catch a toe,

They're accident machines.

On stairs, my friend’s the bannister—

I clasp it like a love

As I descend so cautiously

From rooms that lie above.

I must be very circumspect—

A fall, a break, a cast!—

But also there's the dismal thought:

Next fall could be my last.

 

I saw her at the Rathskeller—

Her looks made me a happy feller.

Shakespeare Couplet: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (45)

And Theseus asks, “What revels are at hand?”

They'll soon see “Pyramus”—in style so … grand? (5.1)