After a night of Thin Man games (I’ll
take five more—line them up right here!),

I’ve discovered that mornings aren’t so
witty when you don’t own

a proper dressing gown and I am, in
fact, not Nora, or Myrna,

my mouth too dry for a pithy
retort, my mouth too dry
to say pithy.

—KATHLEEN OLMSTEAD

(Originally published summer, 2007.)