[Mary McLean]

Bright Star, My Aunt Fanny

How should one kill a poet who complains
about his bloody cough all night and day?
A fiancée can never get away
from pillow talk of gruesome pillow stains.
He’s half consumed by his consumptive pains.
It wouldn’t be surprising if in May
he's crushed beneath a Grecian urn display.
Expose him to the ‘gentle’ Summer rains;
sans merci, brew some belladonna leaves;
use lenses to refocus Autumn suns
upon his clothing; choke him with some sheaves
from Chapman’s Homer (might improve his breath).
Or you can wait until his doctor runs
him off to Rome. That ought to spell his death.