Greetings Lee University. I think it’s time for a break from satire and thinking too hard for both you and me. Instead I shall submit to you a short sestina about nothing which I find rather amusing. Not all humor columns have to be laborious reflections about current events.

How Sir Ratty-Mouse Was Ironically Avenged by the Cat He Blinded for the Nailing of His Wife by the Fool Don Keyhoat

Across the tattered rug Sir Ratty-Mouse
is quickly treading ground to reach his board-
side home where he has left his fencing nail
beneath his bed.  Today he spars the fool –
one Don Keyhoat, who thought he fought the cat
the week before, but really fought a ball

of hair it left behind.  “I’ll have a ball
with this!” declares the rough Sir Ratty-Mouse,
who thinks he might be fit to fight the cat
some day if all goes well.  He finds his board-
side home destroyed! And on the wall “The Fool,
Keyhoat,” is writ in blood.  He sees his nail

embedded in his wife.  “By my own nail!”
He shrieks and swoons and crumples in a ball
and dreams a fleeting dream wherein the Fool
is serviced by his blade.  Sir Ratty-Mouse
awakes, un-wife’s his nail and bails the board-
side home to seek revenge.  He meets the cat

mid flight and screams, “Ah! fit to fight the cat
not yet am I!” but flings his fencing nail
straight at its eye, and just like through a board
by hammer sent the point pricks through the ball
and sends the cat to flee.  Sir Ratty-Mouse,
elated by this feat says, “Now the Fool

Keyhoat I’ll find and fix,” but finds the Fool
has found him first.  “I see you nailed the cat
just like I nailed your wife, Sir Ratty-Mouse!
But here you fail, for you have left your nail
within its eye! What’s left to do but ball
your paltry fists and beat as if a board

my mously chest?” so taunts Keyhoat.  “My board-
side home is gone, so too my wife, you Fool!”
Sir Ratty-Mouse flings back (a shaking ball
of angry fur) with fist to match.  “The cat
will count his luck when he sees you!” He nails
him on the nose, which cracks! “Sir Ratty-Mouse!”

Don cries, “have mercy, please, from mouse to mouse . . .”
but as he begs, the cat runs by, the nail,
unballed, thus boards the Fool and frees the cat.