It startles me that you should be
So disappointed in my poem
That you’d even mail my home
To tell me that you don’t agree!

The kind of poetry I wrote
Is not the kind you’d like to see?
Oh fie! Oh my! Oh, dearie me!
A rising lump still gags my throat:

For failing you will make me blue,
Or green with envy; red with shame!
But soon I’m pale and wan again
—The proper shade for poets true.

Having no countenance but mine,
I can but try my lines to rhyme.

Tia Azulay 15Jun94–29Nov06
Copyright © 1994, 2007 Tia Azulay