All across the borough
the word rang loud and thorough,
as the dough was divvied out from pan to pan –
rang of old enjoyments,
of sundry new employments
now to be unmanned
as the furloughs began.
Some played hard of hearing,
while others started cheering
as the governor glared down on fallen land,
bidding her attorney
rise up and speak it firmly
(burnished, slick and tanned)
that the furloughs would stand.
Then she left her platform,
was on the morrow airborne.
And the man she left appeared to be of wood.
Now, a gentle Christian
unrolled the simple question:
“Tell me, if you could,
whether furloughs are good.”
Silence fell like cancer,
for no one dared to answer –
only, “Folks, we’ll stick it out through thick and thin.
Say we called it grievous,
would we ourselves believe us?”
Seven scribes chimed in
that the furloughs were sin.
Then the man of wood said,
“Alas, let’s not have bloodshed!”
as the people inched up one by one to scold,
hundreds of them seething,
their unfed babies teething.
“People, don’t be bold,
for the furloughs will hold!”
Fists did not make contact,
they just signed the latest contract!
Somewhere off, a lonely owl was heard to hoot.
“See, you’ve signed it; hence, it’s
‘you’re for us or against us’.”
And no one thought it cute
that the furloughs kept mute.
Feeling we’d been cheated,
oh, how quickly we retreated!
First we crawled away but then began to run.
All of us were downcast,
both the slightest and the roundest;
for no one thought it fun
that the furloughs had won.
Anon we told reporters
how we counted fewer quarters,
as we tallied up those nulls that could be named.
Stomachs soon were trimmer
and our dough apportioned slimmer,
and everyone exclaimed,
“What the furloughs have claimed!”
“You see,” cried all the pundits,
“how we’ve contracted despondence
and endeavored to the detriment of youth?”
Now, though neighbor boroughs
have rescinded further furloughs,
our papers offer proof
that the furloughs are Truth.
Yes, the leave was of our taking.
As for now we’re back at baking,
for the dough must always pass from friend to friend.
And it’s true we’re staying home now,
for you see we have no know-how
save to ask one time again
when the furloughs will end.