I want to write words that are polished and pretty
poetic, prophetic and wonderf’ly witty
with verses and stanzas and pages galore,
and when I am finished write ten pages more.
Except there’s a rule that I need to address.
The word count is fifty. No more and no less.

Helen Ksypka lives in Eliot, Maine. She is the author of “A Chef for the Queen,” and her humor has been published by Meadowrook Press, Reader’s Digest, The Saturday Evening Post, Light Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere.