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Ah, distinctly I remember it was early in November
when the hearth-fire’s dying ember cast dark shadows on the floor.
As dry leaves went whirling, flying, suddenly I heard a sighing
as of someone softly crying, “Let me in! Unlock your door.”
Only this and nothing more.
Had she come again? I wondered. As the storm clouds flashed and thundered,
in the throes of hope I blundered, flinging wide my chamber door.
But the vision I confronted was not her for whom I hunted.
Grief arrived and joy was blunted: through that doorway I deplore,
hope would enter nevermore.
Like a ghastly apparition on a grim and solemn mission,
an unnerving politician pushed his way into the room,
and I had the premonition that his access code to fission
soon would cause our demolition. Like a specter from the tomb,
in he came: the Trump of Doom.
Susan McLean is an English professor at Southwest Minnesota State University. Her books of poetry are The Best Disguise and The Whetstone Misses the Knife. She has also translated over 500 satirical poems of the Latin poet Martial, published as Selected Epigrams by the University of Wisconsin Press. Her light verse has often appeared in Light and Lighten Up Online.