I like to torture myself with thoughts
of how perfect her world is every day,
how much easier, more beautiful, more
pleasuresome than mine. Surely
the eagles in her sky make wider arcs
on their statelier, darker brown wings.
Her Easter lilies must fill her rooms
with sweeter more honest white perfume.
Her elderberries must have more bioflavinoids.
More antioxidants, too.
The earthworms in her garden are probably fatter.
The leaves on her elm trees are greener for sure.
I will not mention her grass.
If she rode an elephant, it would have jewels
dripping down its majestic, wrinkled head.
If she had an ermine, its fur would be whiter
than any snow found in my yard.
If I am the stroppy, shaggy emu, then she
is the egret with filamentous plumes, all milky
and showy, that cascade down her slender back.
If I am an eel, she’s an angelfish. If I’m cracked
and scrambled, she’s an ornate Easter egg.
Not that I want to be an Easter egg. Nor an egret.
Nor angelfish. It’s just that I want to be happy,
as happy as I tell myself she is.
*an E-poem for Lian Canty’s Alphabet Menagerie