Classic Poem

At tea in cocktail weather,
The lady authors gather.
Their hats are made of feather.
They talk of Willa Cather.

They talk of Proust and Cather,
And how we drift, and whither.
Where wends the lady author,
Martinis do not wither.

Their cocktails do not wither
Nor does a silence hover.
That critic who comes hither
Is periled like a lover;

Is set on like a lover.
Alert and full of power,
They flush him from his cover,
No matter where he cower.

And Honor Guest must cower
When they, descending rather
Like bees upon a flower,
Demand his views on Cather—

On Wharton, James, or Cather,
Or Eliot or Luther,
Or Joyce or Cotton Mather,
Or even Walter Reuther.

In fact, the tracts of Reuther
They will dispute together
For hours, gladly, soother
Than fall on silent weather.

From teas in any weather
Where lady authors gather,
Whose hats are largely feather,
Whose cocktails do not wither,

Who quote from Proust and Cather
(With penitence toward neither),
Away in haste I slither,
Feeling I need a breather.