Lynn Tait

After a Tall Drink with the Short-Sighted

and though she be but little she is fierce.
Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare

Lord knows I see red
the moment someone calls me cute.
Fire ignites in a flash
fuelled by cute little sticks.
I keep it to myself.

No one’s interested in what this little elf has to say.
No one. That’s a little over the top;
like self as elf bounding over flames in my brain,
sailing over the slow burn with a smirk
that says it knows more than it lets on.

Little but fierce by age ten,
taller at thirty than now,
with shrinkage comes wisdom.
Smoldering past senior moments,  

I’m dismissed by these strange beings
itching to pat me on the head.
My baby blues roll like dice,
snake eyes on a table I can barely see over.

My intensity filters through my comedy routines,
my self-absorbed life—cute little feet up—
cute little audience in a vast world of vaudeville,

acutely aware of actors falling all over themselves,
fighting to get on stage,
yanking on doors of opportunity without knocking.

I don’t want to tell people what to do,
but you seldom get through doors big head first.
But what do I know?
I slipped through the keyhole hours ago.

Lynn Tait is an award-winning poet/photographer residing in Sarnia, Ontario Canada.
Her poems have appeared in High Shelf, FreeFall, Vallum, CV2, Literary Review of Canada, Touchstone and in over 100 North American anthologies. She is a member of the Ontario Poetry Society, League of Canadian Poets and the Academy of American Poets.