Wayne Michael DeHart   (June, 2021)

Grabbed bread and milk and some orange juice
and asked for a six-pack of bananas for the road
but Minnie snorted and said a no-use recluse
should stay out of sight, not leave his abode
(so I wouldn’t be subject to verbal abuse
from a mean-spirited, spiteful nematode?).
My response was brisk, blunt and profuse:
“Milady (a title befitting this ominous ode),
I’m going home to seduce chocolate mousse
and then double down with pie a la mode,
giving you some time to produce an excuse
for the way you’ve let your manners erode;
to reflect on your words, conclude and deduce,
you crapped on me like a commode overflowed.
She recoiled in anger, said “Get out – VAMOOSE,”
calling me everything from a turd to a toad.
She slammed her size 12 right up my caboose
so hard and so swift I felt my innards implode.
Still, I returned one night for gas and produce,
but my butt once again got firmly steel-toed.
Minnie Smart was combative, her lips too loose.
Her anger flashed fire and her rage was a load.
Then came the night she booted Mayor Bruce;
he fell on his head and his heart soon slowed.
They took her away, she cooked her own goose.
Her weak side showed and her tears free-flowed.
She played her last ace, dropped her last deuce,
checked out in her cell, ducked the dues she owed.
The store was sold and razed, but the land’s in use –
a park for the people, that the buyer bestowed.
The widow of Bruce
had honored his code
of living life’s truce
in true giving mode.
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