Part Two

PART TWO.  The Vat and Deluge.

 

Brooding over North End Boston loomed a liquid threat;

Built by Arthur Jell, who didn't feel the need to fret

About the weight and volume of this viscid juggernaut.

It held two million gallons of molasses lately bought.

It leaked a bit as pressure grew inside the swollen vat,

But Arthur and his minions just continued to stand pat.

The company that paid him to construct it might as well

Be the ones concerned about the way it seemed to swell.

Arthur Jell, he sat at lunch, and had a treacle tart.

He did not hear the screaming when the vat blew all apart.

Like an earthquake underseas that vat of near five story

Unleashed an ocean full of fury and a malign glory.

Some say the wave was eight feet tall, some say it was fifteen.

It pushed at concrete buildings in a way that was obscene.

The Elevated tracks along Commercial Street were sapped.

People along Charter Street were seriously trapped.

William Duffy's body, the first victim of this breach,

Rolled along quite placidly and stopped at North End Beach.

Remorseless as the hand of God and full of brutal power,

The wave was clocked at going nearly thirty miles per hour.

It stopped the mouths of children and of women washing clothes;

It sent a dozen horses to their long equine repose.

Those who did escape its wrath could not escape the dread,

Forever after shunning candied apples, gingerbread.

The dead were stripped of dignity, were sent to common earth,

Losing life to something like a Mrs. Butterworth.

The victims – how they struggled! – as the rescuers did too,

In this ever-widening tide of grim and black, sweet-smelling goo.

Policemen waded in and lost their shoes and woolen socks.

As the winter night came down the goo, it turned to rocks.

Glassy rocks upon which men and women slid about;

Some were cursing, others uttered words much more devout.

Mrs. Duffy claimed her husband's body by the shore,

Where they'd strolled and argued many times in days before.

Horses, dogs and chickens covered in the sticky goo

were not shampooed or rescued – they were shot without ado.

The doctors and their nurses were in such a frantic state;

A sucrose-poisoned infant – how do you resuscitate?

Had a bomb been planted?  Were there Bolshevists abroad?

Molasses as a weapon did not seem so very odd.

Arthur Jell was certain it was Wobblies done the deed.

He felt that martial law should be immediately decreed.

But since nobody rich enough to have the Mayor's ear

Had died in the catastrophe, then what was there to fear?

Police worked double-shifts without a shred of overtime.

The Volstead Act was passed that night and church bells loud did chime.

 

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