Joyce,* my friend,
Has every right to lord it over
The Brave Little Tailor.
His seven are nothing
To rival her slaughter of a single
Stink Bug.
Armed with a Shakespearean tome
In the right,
And poetic treatise in the left,
She takes off after the pest
Determined to smash it to smithereens.
Barely having recovered from a bout with
An ornery gray cat, energy renewed with a
Single deep breath, she is invincible.
That look, that Macbethean furor,
That, “Listen here your devil cat
I’ll have none of your
Shenanigans
In my house,” is ear shattering.
Hearing that, the bug should have know
Once on a tear,
Joyce is unstoppable—
Hannibal, Alexander, Charlemagne, Napoleon, MacArthur—
All you staunch-hearted tailors,
Regardless of political persuasion,
Better take care.
She’s wearing that sash
Emblazoned with her motto,
“Have no fear,
Joyce is here.”
*Joyce Abell, author of
PRICKLY ROSES
Passager Books
Baltimore, MD
Charlene James Duguid
Amissville, Virginia
2/2018