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Algonquin Assumption

When Dorothy Parker ate lunch
(one morsel of salad she’d munch),
her barbs and bon mots
led friends to suppose
she lived on her lines of spiked punch.


Speaking of None

The poet Christina Rossetti
picked subjects more lofty than petty:
fresh hopes (over peas),
hard loss (over cheese) –
no paeans in praise of spaghetti.


Emily’s Knead

Miss Dickinson loved baking bread;
the aroma would go to her head.
Each brief interlude,
having stirred, would conclude
in crumbs and a verse in her bed.