She’s charismatic, mistress of the brag.
Who turns a look like hers? The highest tuck
you could have—you might say she’s enjambed. Her wig
don’t ever slip. Her lip sync’s never slack.
She struts around in five-inch heels and lines
her syllables in red lip liner. Looks
like one of Shakespeare’s girls. And boy she rhymes
like he’s inside her—thumbing through her book.
You’ll want to read like her. You’ll want to wear
hip pads beneath your quatrains. Stuff big words
in every line to burst the iamb’s brassiere.
To be Elizabethan, queen of bards.
But can you bring it like a bottom from the top—
from the title to your couplet’s death drop?
Copyright © 2025 by Chris Watkins. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 14, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
