by Eddie Aderne

“Oregon to ban ‘gushing’ love letters to homeowners from potential buyers …
The new law aims to eliminate conscious or subconscious gatekeeping by sellers
when they select who gets to live in their home and their neighborhood after they leave.”
—The Guardian

In Oregon, to buy a home
Would make a politician blush.
Your ego shrunken like a gnome,
You have to swoon and fawn and gush

As if the place you aimed to buy
(Competitively, be it said)
Were Downton-Abbey-cum-Versailles,
Not this prefabricated shed.

But now the custom’s to be banned!
Attempt no more to jump the queue
By penning in your finest hand
A building-focussed billet doux;

No epistolary panache
Will serve to rest your claim upon;
Henceforth plain democratic cash
Alone will serve in Oregon.