Poems The hard-won privileges of the dead Dead men's tales The clothes never get clean Title belt St. Sophronia's cathedral Or cough up smoke into a handkerchief Now that she's been high enough up to see Paris Dead men's tales William Blake's chimney sweep warms himself in the stove. He can tell us how my birthday cake is doing. "It looks burnt."  "But it's supposed to be chocolate." "Oh.  It's okay then." I wish he could tell me if I am getting a pony. "It's hard to tell.  It could be a zebra or a tiger." "Thank you," I tell him.  What do you tell the boy who tells everything? He can tell the time off a clock. He can tell the future. At supper he tells Dead Men's Tales. "Off the coast of Barbados is a treasure forty men died stealing, buried in the carcass of a horse." Peter says, "When you say 'off the coast,' do you mean in the water or on a neighboring island?" Eliza says, "Don't we just have to wait until the carcass decays, so the treasure will be visible to the eye-- or is the horse buried, too, below sea level?" William Blake says, "Where did you hear such idle tales?" "I shall never tell," he answers. "But the important part is, as I was saying, even though it's hidden in a horse's ribcage, it also is hidden in a treasure chest. "Only the key is hidden in the carcass of Captain Ducasse-- the thirty-ninth of the forty men--buried separately.  He swallowed it." "But what does it matter?  You know where both skeletons are, don't you?" I say.  "You can dig them up." "Why would I want to do that?  It's accursed. That's why people bury treasure in the first place. That's why I buried the treasure-- I the fortieth man."  (All gasp.) After we finish our chores--I polish the chalk slates, he steps from the chimney--I am dying to tell him something. "I can tell you how old I am." "No, you can't.  You're not old enough to know how to count the candles." He tells the truth.  I never age. "I can tell the difference between copper and bronze." "What is it, then?"  "One of them looks almost like gold, but not as shiny.  The other one looks more like brass." "But which is it?  And which, if the treasure chest creaks open and you only have time to grab a handful of one of them, which do you grab?  Which is more valuable?"   Home | Email