by Steve Bremner

(with apologies to Christina Rossetti)

My heart was like a singing bird
Whose nest was looking sort of shabby;
My heart was like an apple-tree
Whose fruit was growing kind of crabby;
My heart was like a dull crustacean
That drifts in dark but wineless sea;
My heart now pops a palpitation:
My fourteen hundred‘s come to me.

Fill me a purse with cash and cards
And aim me at those old oases
Of humble bare necessities:
Kohl’s, Neiman Marcus, Saks, and Macy’s.
I need you not, usurious lender,
I’m stimulated for a spree;
For the rebirth of this spender
Is come, my check is come to me.