Oysteresque

O, what care I for cake or pie or sweetbreads by the ton!

And costly roast, or quail on toast I would forever shun;

O, what care I for broil or fry or dishes choice and new,

When ev’ry day in my café I find an oyster stew?

I do not yearn for old Sauterne, nor Port of ’78,

Nor any drink with cooling clink that’s strictly up to date;

For what care I if I be dry when I can know right-well

I’ll find each day in my café a dozen on the shell?

O, not for me a fricassee, a broil or costly plank,

No salad fine indeed for mine or Roquefort rich and rank;

For what care I for chicken pie, or game whene’er it comes,

When any day I can survey a dozen “fried in crumbs”?

Nov. 2, ‘09