The Month Problem

I sat me down to write a verse,

A tidy little poetic run,

A charming rhyme, a clever line,

A stanza neatly, sweetly done.

It started well: the sky, the breeze,

A wistful heart, a pensive hunch,

But then I wrote the fatal word…

And everything went out to lunch.

Month, I said. A harmless choice.

A simple span of days and sun.

But English, stubborn as it is,

Declared: “No rhyme for you,

month has none”

I tried with once, I tried with dunce,

I muttered crunch and even punch,

But none would sit with dignity,

They jostled, awkward in a bunch.

I begged the muses: “Help me here!

Just one good rhyme, I’m not that blunt!”

They shrugged and whispered back to me,

“You knew the risk—you picked the month.”

So now I dodge that cursed word,

in every poem, every hunt.

I’d write of years, or weeks, or moons,

But never, ever speak of month.