QUESTIONS FOR THE PASSIVE MAN
WORRIED ABOUT ABDUCTION

Another executive has disappeared,
no note or phone call yet. Did he expect
to be abducted? Does anyone,
submissive to the end, ever expect
to turn up in a ditch, feast for fly
and worm? Were you bundled off to Scouts,
formal kerchief a sign around your neck,
told at Jamboree to tie, with brittle
fingers in the freezing rain, a bowline,
to win, or fail again to win, a prize?
Were you ready to submit? And did
the Army hand you down its line, stamp 
you potential engineer, scrap the plan,
ship you overseas to load and unload
ammo, bring you home and let you go? 
Were you ready then? For Cupid's ruthless
bondage? The job, that pistol at your head?
The marriage bed, to lie there, hostage?
Ready to give in without a struggle?
To trust abductors not to bungle?
Another executive has disappeared.

- Graham Duncan

All rights to this poem belong to its author.

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