The Peeved Piper
Melissa Balmain
Yes, of course when the people of Hamelin refused
to come up with my pest-control fee, I felt used,
and so that’s
why I vowed that their children would all become mine
once they followed my music beyond the town line—
like the rats.
For a couple of days I was fun “Uncle P”:
we ate pie and I whittled each kiddo a wee
pipe from wood,
as I pitied the daddies and pitied the moms
who were missing their sweet little Trixies and Toms.
Life was good…
till they wouldn’t quit piping from midnight to noon!
Every time, the same pitchy and ear-splitting tune!
My hair grayed.
When I took the brats back, there was not a wet eye—
and I knew, as the tanned, rested parents purred, “Hi,”
I’d been played.
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From Melissa’s collection The Witch Demands a Retraction: Fairy Tale Reboots for Adults (Humorist Books).
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Melissa’s notes: “This one goes out to all you parents with kids home for the summer.”
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Melissa Balmain edits Light, North America’s longest-running journal of comic verse, and teaches writing at the University of Rochester. Her poems and/or prose have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Ecotone, The Hopkins Review, Lighten Up Online, Literary Matters, McSweeney’s, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Nimrod, Poetry Daily, and Rattle. Her latest book of poetry is Satan Talks to His Therapist (Paul Dry Books).
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