I Am a Lady Novelist

(with apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan!)

I am a lady novelist,
so your story for my mill is grist
(and especially any seamy tryst—
all the details of your being kissed!).

When making notes I love a list
though it causes me a tired wrist.
I’d rather not reboot my disk
but Google the mythic basilisk.

Like an Egyptian archaeologist
I really really must insist
that the hieroglyphics of an obelisk
be rendered so I get the gist.

And like a gerontologist
I consider old folks in something of a mist
(or those entirely gone ‘round the twist).
I’m sometimes poised like a metallurgist
quite eagerly above a schist.

I am an awful fabulist!
My words are sometimes falsely lisped,
my spokes as silvery as a trick cyclist’s,
and when I’m in the mood be sure I’ll play you
    a mean game of Whist.

I am I am a lady novelist—
Oh isn’t it just mahvelous!

—Christie