The Hamlet Project

Tenable is kind of an awesome word
That I never hear.
It’s so foreign to my eye and ear that I insistently read it as Venable
Because that was the name of my elementary school.
Presumably Venable was someone’s name and not some next of kin to Tenable –
But my connecting memories
Put Hamlet’s compatriots’ silence on a small city block and put Venable in it,
Concealing the sight of ghosts.
This then was the effect of sending the king’s ghost List, list, oh, listing
Down the halls of Venable School
Attempting to “Remember, remember” in a tiny kindergarten chair
And tossing the sand from the sand table
When he gets agitated.
He shakes his head at the tiny bathrooms
Unable to believe they’re as small as they are –
He remembered them so much bigger. The he goes to hide in the boiler room
So when some unsuspecting child
Says a bad word in the hall
He can swoop under his feet
And shake the floor with a reverberating “Swear!”