Synged by the waning moon, hot, bruised, and Welty,
Her condition was Kipling at first.
Until her friend insisted, “Sitwell or stand up!
Don’t be a laggard, or worse, a Stoppard.”
And gave her a spank on the Heine.
Talking to a Doctorow psychology,
She knew she could either Dolittle or do lots.
She was neither a Pope nor a pastor,
Nor a Miller nor a Skinner,
But a true Central ‘Parker.’
Watching the Grass grow,
She became a jogger seeking truth,
Fording streams Atwood and meadow.
She didn’t Vonnegut. She wanted to stay trim.
She tried to Chekov her options.
She wasn’t a Coward. She was an Ovid Lerner
Seeking a Moore Thoreau understanding,
An overaCheever, who rarely got bad Marx.
Neither Poe nor Rich, neither god nor goddess,
She was still not a Lesser being,
But a Kingsolver of unspeakable mysteries.
Yet Wharton on the world to change,
She was also nervous and Updike.
To Shepard her Grand Design,
She was still Fielding demons of denial.
She’d read how to stop them in their tracks:
“Bellow! Shakespeare! And cry Woolf!”
But even with this, her fears would Nabakov.
So she tried a Swifter reply.
“You Auden do that. Put a Locke on it.
“Don’t sink to a new Nadar, or it’s all Capote.”
With that, her strength returned, and she was full of Pepys.
She stood beside home Plato with a new sphere of understanding,
Pounding the ball to hit a Homer,
While her adversaries fouled out with Beattie eyes.
Her Latina friend, who was also a Hardy soul,
Clapped her hands and told her that she looked Jung—
She could still bring home the Bacon.
“Zola!” she said with a Sterne countenance,
And then she wished them both “Eternal Paz!”