Dear Writer [who’s not dear and cannot write],
Thank you for showing us your [so-called] work.
[It’s obvious that you’re a clueless jerk
and typed the thing while higher than a kite.]
Although we read [three words of] it with care,
we’ll have to pass [a kidney stone or two —
or so it seemed when we were reading you.
We also felt like tearing out our hair].
Unfortunately [fortunately] we
get many [better] manuscripts each week
[spam, takeout menus, notes from creditors],
so [if we want to keep our sanity]
we can’t give [drunks like you] a full critique.
Good luck [at Betty Ford],
The Editors
In addition to The Formalist and Light Quarterly (in which she was recently the featured poet), Melissa Balmain’s work has appeared in Measure, Mezzo Cammin, Cadenza, Kiss and Part, and other journals and anthologies. She has twice been a finalist for the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award. Her nonfiction has been published in The New Yorker, Details, and The New York Times, and she is currently a contributing editor and humorist at Parenting and Babytalk magazines.
