TWO DRAWERS

Two drawers there are in our household;

Two drawers on which the People shall depend.

 

And the first of these two in the kitchen dwells

And the name of the Drawer shall be “Any Other Business”

For the precious possessions of the People shall lie therein;

Those things which roam the kitchen shall claim sanctuary there 

And their names shall be called Tinfoil, Elastic Bands and String,

Scissors, Jam Labels and those Skewers for holding corn on the cob,

And the Knitting Needle for testing the cookedness of cakes.

And the Drawer shall be bounteous in the life of the People,

And goodness shall smile upon the face of the kitchen.

But woe betide those who disturb the dwellers in Any Other Business

And cast them out of their homes and remove them!

For that shall be sinful in the eyes of the People

And shall not go unpunished.

 

The second of these two is in the bedroom found

And it shall be a refuge for the homeless in times of trouble,

For in it dwell those socks which have lost their twin brothers

And are no longer useful in the sight of the People.

And it is a place of lamentation and wailing

And the name of it shall be called “Death Row”.

For those who are cast there shall be destroyed;

Except for once a year at the time of Jubilee

When the People shall hold a great Tidying

And Death Row shall be opened out and harrowed

And those socks with no brothers shall be thrown into the Pit.

But those socks which find their twins shall be reclaimed

And the People shall rejoice in their salvation;

For there shall be more joy over the lost socks that are reunited

Than over those which have served the toes of the People well.

 

For in the People’s household there are many drawers

But the greatest of them are these two alone:

Any Other Business and Death Row.