Incognito
Callisto wasn’t much impressed
when Zeus seduced her while cross-dressed.
You think he had Europa’s full
consent for sex? Her answer: “Bull!”
Leda, too, was less than stirred
when Zeus, disguised, gave her the bird,
and, kidnapped by a beaky sod,
Ganymede sulked and cursed his god.
Did Io trust in Zeus’s vow
he wasn’t married? Silly cow.
Gods know, if you can change your shape,
you’ll always beat the rap for rape.
A Paean to Extruded Food
Oh, how I love extruded food!—
shrimp that are minced and then combined
with substances that hold them glued
in perfect curls that fool the mind;
onions ground up and mixed with paste,
squirted and fried in flawless O’s
remotely oniony in taste;
pressurized cheese that smoothly flows
in piping from a metal can,
a cheese with which to write one’s name,
which tastes like no cheese known to man,
shelf-stable, constantly the same.
O triumphs of modernity,
you foodstuffs of eternity!
Many Hoppy Returns
Hippity-hoppity,
Peter the Cottontail
knows the right basket for
carrying eggs.
Relished by raptors yet
philoprogenitive,
he may be lunch, but his
gene pool has legs.
Susan McLean teaches English at Southwest Minnesota State University. Her humorous poems have appeared in Light Quarterly, Lighten Up Online, The Chimaera, Bumbershoot, and elsewhere.