Lucky Lobster Rag

8. Lucky Lobster Rag
Celebration of Whole Foods' (imagined) treatment of live lobsters they decided it was immoral to sell.

Way down back of the Good Foods Store Meanwhile my life’s like no other:
They built us out an ocean floor: I play mah jongg with my twin brother;
That’s where we lucky lobsters love to loll. We dance the quadrille, sing our songs
They feed us scraps of hard salami, Till quarter after three.
chevre, olives, edamame. Till morning then we fall asleep
Each day we’re on another kind of roll. On cobble in a happy heap:
Some jellyfish our night light
Pilgrims thought we were fertilizer; If we ever have to pee.
Later gourmets learned to prize our
Springy sweet white flesh dry-brushed Old friends arrive from stores everywhere,
With tangerine and salmon. In sacks of rockweed
To sell us from captivity is wrong they say Next day air!
But secretly, we think our great good fortune And could they poach us?
Might have more to do with Mammon. Too slow OO- eee.
They’re going to coach us, with
And could they grill us? Yoga classes, meditation,
No no no... Ten step meetings,
And they couldn’t just kill us? Each crustacean’ll
Nah Be all the lobster he or she can be....
What would they tell
The tofu swells Now lobster rhymes with dinner bell
And the friends of free range buffalo? For years at sea we’ve known this well.
We thought our last swim would be in
Pa got sold before our day: Some big blue speckled pot.
At a dandy dinner in old Back Bay So every day, the chosen many,
In nutmeg, cream and brandy gladly met his destiny. We circle round, phase our antennae
Now his shell’s out west some forty mile, With a lobster podcast live at noon
The rest of him has cleared Deer Island. Give thanks for what we got.
He’s back in the harbor singin’
Nearer my cod to thee. Lucky lobsters live forever
And would they sell Us? Drinkin’ sparkling clementine.
No no no!
Or braise and jell us?
They’ll have to keep us well, or we’ll cast our spell
And wilt all their radiccio.