after The Reverent by Billy Collins

Arrogance makes your words
sound of howling dogs.

They fall from your mouth, in
lifeless idioms you call poetry.

Clacking on a keyboard, the
room littered with strutting cats,
tails high mirroring your vanity, and
your lips curl as you type, all
puffed-up with your genius. The
disdain you show the work of others,
convinces me your true calling is prose.
————

Mary Chris Bailey is a retired pediatric ER doc. In retirement, she can often be found willing words to flow from her brain to the keyboard and onto the computer screen. Her prose has been published in Please See Me, Bright Flash Literary Review, and a few other places. This is her first poetry publication. She lives with her husband and two dogs and divides her time between Maine and Florida. Her dogs like her writing. Her husband isn’t sure.