Edith Sitwell and the Carnal World

3

When I complained about decanting flies, someone placed
a matchbox in my palm. Was I supposed to trap the things?
(My wrists were pinned away from my gowned sides, remember.)
You puzzle on while I describe the label:
a stenciled blue ship, anchored, and an equally blue canal
curling between smokestacks like a cleansing path.
Letters in red: “Ship,” “Canal,” and “Match,”
as if these make perfect sense together. But the new world’s flat,
the ship’s been hitched to the opposite side from that on which
the blue canal—along which nothing moves all day—must wend.
And the matches (shake the box) are also  absent.
Is it that what strikes, on clever surfaces, also sticks?
My brain’s alight! How sly of Nurse to kill the time
like this, and of you, dear Viewer, to swat along!