Classic Poem

How like you, cholera,
to worry over the health of strangers.
And you have let your sweetheart go hungry,
while your legend crossed the country,

a surprise visitor playing Cupid,
keeping the happy happy -
from guest wing to portrait gallery,
prickly wilderness to deepest city.

With a grace of Goth and Hun,
you taught the danger of your good turn -
in roadiess times, with early spoons,
and it only took an afternoon.

You rise like Islarn this mauve morning,
inventing dark and savage deserts.
Tonight you launch them from the spire
and they'll spread like spiny fire.