But We Can Pay, We Can Pay!

[dukealien]

But We Can Pay, We Can Pay!


Then one month the Cargo stopped arriving.
We submitted our prayers
and they were accepted as always
with email acknowledgments
and debits to our accounts
but the Cargo did not appear
on our doorsteps.

Out at sea we could discern great ships
huge trays loaded with stacked pyramids
of multicolored concentrated Cargo
like the toy interlocking plastic bricks
some of us had ordered
but did not receive.

We learned gradually that the Cargo
was not simply those monster assemblages
that tantalized us off our coast
almost within swimming distance
their dragging anchors
tearing oil and cable links.

The ginger ale absent from grocery shelves
the carrots farmers didn’t bring to market
eventually even loaves of white and black bread
all vanished for not only they were Cargo
but also chemical fertilizers
on which they depend to grow.

That was when we discovered
it doesn’t take a grass-skirted
South Sea islander to make
a cannibal or head-hunter
only a slightly prolonged
absence of Cargo.