by Lewis Turco
"Who's that pecking at my door?"
"I'm the bird called 'Never More!"
"I'm the poet E. A. Poe;
We pronounce it 'Nevah Mo'
Here below the Mason Dixon."
"I think your accent needs some fixin'."
"Shoo! Begone, you Yankee bird!"
"Okay, I'm gone! I'll leave a turd
For you to recollect me by —
Oh, by the bye, I am a minah,
Not a raven…I'm much finah
Than a morn in Carolina
Or a nest full of Jim Crow."
"Begone! Get hence!" said Edgar Poe.
Other work by Lewis Turco: