Lynne Thompson
​

Through Another Looking Glass

Because I am slithy and mimsy, I reign as
the Almost-Upright Queen of Portmanteau:
infomercial
affluenza
smog and
a sharktopus, and you
shouldn’t scoff at the mixing of the breeds:
       cama           coywolf           Zonkey
or do you think--Miss-not-so-innocent—you should?

If so, Miss Zebra make way for Mr. Donkey.
Come sit by this bank of listless waters. Come
share your hay and silage, bark and saplings,
because there won’t be another generation like yours.

So what? We are all a ghostly hybrid residue and
this world has seen worse. What happened when
one Belgian1 came to more than admire a woman
born of the Twa or of the Babongo people? They laid
down together and there made an increase although,
perhaps, they left no credible record of their daughter,
nor she of hers, nor they of theirs.  So what if someone
writes a blasphemy about the listicles of each of them;
they have been liberated from death, yes? Because they

are the next generations’ guesstimate, its hazmat not to be
mansplained. They are a metaverse. They are a romcom,
a spife and spork and most definitely sacrilege wedded to
deliciousness—so sacrilicious, 2075. If they live that long.
                                             
​1 I wrote this poem in the midst of reading Adam Hochshild’s “King Leopold’s Ghost”
The year of voting dangerously

​The ayes may have it.
The nays may have it.
The most important question:
whether or not to support
the kale lobby or
ignore & go for pumpernickel?
Should we few unschooled debate?
On the one hand, kale
threatens to split the country--
but what of spinach, cabbage,
lettuce? Because, on the other
hand, who can trust in bread? White
today, a darkening rye tomorrow--
--
Lynne Thompson was the 4th Poet Laureate of the City of Los Angeles and received a Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. The author of three collections of poetry--Beg No Pardon, Start With A Small Guitar, and Fretwork--her fourth, Blue on a Blue Palette, will be published by BOA in April 2024.