Shouting at Shakespeare

Dawn Potter

How can you make such outrageous modest claims—

“I think good thoughts whilst other write good words”?

Why invite pity from the copyist mouthing your refrains

Like an accurate parrot? Why burden me with this absurd

Maudlin plea? The problem, big Will, is that no one

Can possibly trust your coy ignorance—these self-slamming asides,

These parenthetical sighs. You toss me a melancholy bone,

A morsel to sustain me as I dutifully admire your rhymes

And indiscretions. It’s too much like dealing with the man

Who broods so charmingly on why he’ll always love

My husband. I clutch the phone to my ear and fan

A panicked SOS into the resigned aether. Enough.

I’ve grown used to the common pain

Of being less. But don’t you complain.

[first published in LocusPoint and forthcoming in Same Old Story

(CavanKerry Press, 2014)]