'As Though It Was Meant to Happen'

This is Cornelius Eady's lovely reimagining of the old Leadbelly song, in which Jack Johnson is refused a ticket on the Titanic:

Jack Johnson Does The Eagle Rock

Perhaps he left the newspaper stand that morning

         dazed, a few pennies lighter,

The illustration of the crippled ocean liner

       with the berth he had the money

But not the skin to buy

Engraving itself

On that portion of the mind reserved for

       lucky breaks.

Perhaps the newsboy, a figure too small to

       bring back,

Actually heard his laugh,

As the S.S. Titanic, sans one prize fighter,

Goes down again all over New York,

Watched his body dance

As his arms lift the ship, now a simple millimeter thick,

       above his head

In the bustling air, lift it up

As though it was meant to happen,

For the literal-minded, there's no evidence that Jack Johnson was refused a ticket. I hate having to add that, but comedy and poetry posts seem to attract the world's most narrow- and literal-minded people. The poem is from Eady's great book, Victims of the Latest Dance Craze.