The Death of Polonius
Dan Albergotti
  
He should not have been hiding
behind the arras, but he was, after all,
a tedious old fool, just one more arrant knave.
 
Still, you have to wonder: where should
he have been? Reading a devotional book,
playing Caesar, on a boat to England? Alas.
 
The sheer weight of the options is enough
to drive you mad. Where, indeed,
would it have been sufficient for him to be? 
 
Trailing his own son at a discreet distance
through the streets of Paris, walking
out of the air, at supper? Alas, alas. 
 
Nowhere was ever good enough.
But though this meddling, counseling fool
was always where he should not be,
 
in the end we know where to find him:
with the clowns and songs and skulls
and his own mad, grinning daughter.
     

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