“Ah Dear Reader” by Leslie Lippincott Hidley

Ah, dear Reader, I treat you badly
My writing’s clever, and I gladly
Pull the wool over your eyes
Until the end when the surprise

Is lurking there, waiting to pounce
And I, all smirky, sway and flounce
Right out the door, all high and haughty,
Cheshire grin, like I’ve been naughty.

My writing, it pretends to niceness,
But in truth it’s got more iceness:

You see, I am the CAT,
The reader is the mouse.
I toss him ‘round the room,
I chase him ‘bout the house.
He doesn’t know it’s I
That harry him this way
I tell a little lie
About how fine the day
And when he feels truth’s chill
Way deep inside his bones
He doesn’t know I’ve written it
Beneath my dulcet tones.

Mrs. Hidley has been writing prose and poetry for her own amusement and that of her family and friends and others for most of her 73 years. And one of her ten grandchildren is named Kalliope. She has lived in Walla Walla, Washington; Frankfurt and Bremerhaven, Germany; Upper New York State; Enid, Oklahoma; Montgomery and Prattville, Alabama; Lubbock, Texas; Dover, Delaware; West Palm Beach, Florida; Goose Bay, Labrador; Washington, D.C.; Fairfield, California; Omaha, Nebraska; and now resides in Ojai (Nest-of-the-Moon), California, where she continues to write.