For Laurel and Hardy on My Workroom Wall

They’re tipping their battered derbies and striding forward
  In step for a change, chipper, self-assured,
 Their cardboard suitcases labeled
Guest of Steerage. They’ve just arrived at the boot camp
  Of the good old French Foreign Legion
 Which they’ve chosen as their slice of life
Instead of drowning themselves. Once again
  They’re about to become their own mothers and fathers
 And their own unknowable children
Who will rehearse sad laughter and mock tears,
  Will frown with completely unsuccessful
 Concentration, and will practice the amazement
Of suddenly understanding everything
  That baffles them and will go on baffling them
 While they pretend they’re only one reel away
From belonging in the world. Their arrival
  Will mark a new beginning of meaningless
 Hostilities with a slaphappy ending. In a moment,
They’ll hear music, and as if they’d known all along
  This was what they’d come for, they’ll put down
 The mops and buckets given them as charms
With which to cleanse the Sahara and move their feet
  With a calm, sure, delicate disregard
 For all close-order drill and begin dancing.