Originally published in Twenty Bellows Welcoming The Muse: Meta and Other Forms (2024)

Photo credit: Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

If you were to ask who pushed me along in this world,

it’d be Dylan, King, Croce, and Seuss with their swirls,

and Harrison, Berry, Elton, and Tarantino,

for being brave and showing how to tango

with the ones who don’t get it; same with Dahl, Aurelius,

Poe, Grisham, Irving, Sandler, and Chris Farlius.

If I returned as a man, a man with a plan, 

I’d find Steinbeck, Hendrix, Churchill, and then

I’d round up the strong women I lost on the shelf,

for I’m an ill-tempered female raised by more than one wolf.

Sure, these inspirational men have shown me the way,

but why am I feeling so left out today?

It’s possibly because I’ve forgotten my manners,

like mentioning Alice, Harper, and glamours

of being women; fierce, bitchin’ ladies,

for I am one too: bold, outspoken, not dainty.

With fear of retribution, backlash, and whips,

we face our masters and claw back with quips.

We are banshees in shackles, our cycles in sync

with the moon and each other, defying groupthink.

To the losers who assume we cannot lift our own pounds,

may we remind you who’s spun up such sounds.

Praise be to Aretha, Eudora, and Agatha,

Ayn, Teresa, Serena, Diana, 

Pat Summitt, and Sylvia who left us to swoon,

Toni, Jackie, and Maya Angelou.

Hail Joan, Michele, Gloria, Joni, and Dolly,

Bey, Taylor, and Megan Mullally,

because how did Meg manage to find her a man

who levitates when fishing and hunts with his hands?

Ron Swanson: the true inspiration for me.

Every steakhouse he walks to he eats at for free.

But what about Shel, lest we forget

his words and his tunes, a Deepness vet.

For that is the life I want to be living –

Absorbing what Silverstein says about giving,

and to be inclusive, strong-willed, and brave,

to show my children how to see with range.

Alas, I come back to the top of my addendum –

I wish I could focus and be more like all of them.