To Mock a Killingbird

Why do you mock me? She asked.
That’s not mockery, I replied, I’m simply
providing an ironic context for your remarks,
and speaking as a man who knows
literary when he sees it,
that was one humdinger of a context.
Oh, we’re doing literary, are we?
Do you know what Hemingway said
when Scott Fitzgerald provided
an ironic context for his remarks?
No, I don’t know that one.
Her right hook dislocated my jaw.
Old Hemingway certainly had
a way with words, I mumbled,
expelling blood and teeth.
Oh, that’s nothing. Listen to what Joyce said
when Beckett gave a frank and honest opinion
of his observations.
She feinted with her left, and as I blocked it
and prepared a counter-argument to the stomach,
a pertinent sporting metaphor delivered by foot
caught me squarely in the penalty area.
I doubled over, gasping in admiration
of Joyce’s eloquence.
To continue the sporting theme, she said,
hefting a cricket bat...