Sonnet To A Cold

O co’d to you I meegly bow today,

     You ho’d me in your icy grib – ker choo!

     A’d hag a’d barg is ord that I cad do –

Ker choo, ker choo! By head id big, I say,

A’d any o’d balood. Plede go away

     A’d let me sleeb, or die, or anythi’g;

     Whene’er I breathe by node stards in to si’g,

A’d squeeg worse thad them thi’gs the Dagos play.

I guess I god the grib all righd, all righd,

     The way I feel today – ker choo, ker choo!

     May lood my job, bud don’d care if I do;

I’ll ged another wud a cussed sighd

     Better thad I god now. Ker choo, ker choo!

     I god the blam’dest co’d I ever knew.

Dec. 13, ‘04

NOTE – I’ve left what are often inappropriate or even racial terms (in this case, “Dagos”) as written. They are rare, and probably weren’t seen as objectionable within even New England society at the time. More importantly, they exist, and editing them out would be dishonest. Things were what they were. Still, including them, as I have done, remains awkward for obvious reasons, including personal taste and the harmfulness of their use. Hopefully, doing so will at least present an accurate picture of how ingrained some prejudices, or at least callousness to them, still were at the time, even among some of the more progressive people of the era.