Children Who Are Able to Pass the Marshmallow Test
(Stichomancic poem, with lines taken from captions printed in the New Yorker, May 18, 2009)
by Katharine ShowalterI said come alone.
  I'm running late —
  some people were waiting
  so I had to take
  my sweet time.
The eclectic guitarist Marc Ribot
celebrates his birthday.
  The strings
  are catgut.
Children who are able to pass the marshmallow test
  enjoy greater success as adults.
Can Islamists and liberals unite
  Dovima with Sacha, Cloche and Suit
against a corrupt status quo?
  Glover, Goodman, Lane, and Irwin.
I want to be feared as a tyrant,
loved as a father,
and revered as a god,
  but I also want them
  to think I'm funny.
  Hey, investor fears need calming
  over here, too.
People assess their own exposure first
and then, gradually, their implication
  for their friends, their town, their social fabric,
and, in the darker hours,
the fate of the American experiment.
  Have you ever tried
  buying lots of stuff?
And we will absolutely start lending again
as soon as we finish building our debtors' prison.
  Do you have any organic bullets?
Sweetie, words have the power to hurt.
  I'll teach you
  some of the most effective ones.
No one had written criticism
quite like Hazlitt's before.
  Tell them that hilarious story
  about your colonoscopy.
To him, prose, just like poetry,
reflected a fundamental world view.
Eric Bana as Captain Nero
  I hope you like sports metaphors.
Sometimes I think
the collaborative process
would work better
  without you.

