Death by Plot Device
From Juliet to Cio-Cio-San,
By way of Emma Bovary –
They each were halted by a man
Who plots and spins their tragedy,
By ending them with his fatal pen –
All killed by their creator yet agen.
For Emmalene, no silver screen.
For Hannah Baker, life is shorter.
Ophelia is free to dream
With Bess, the landlord’s black-eyed daughter.
Giving up all they had to give,
Thus they must die so that a man may live.
Come Brünnhilde of the Norse,
Jocasta of the Greeks, come too,
And Thelma and Louise, of course –
Cecilia Lisbon’s joining you.
So young and clichéd, full of romance –
Farewell. Alas, you never had a chance.
For Anna Karenina and Hedda Gabler,
It will never be a wonderful life –
Each felt a fatalism grab her,
With a well-placed gun or foreshadowed knife.
Like all of the tragic women above
In their man-made sacrifices all for love.
Rhyming Couplets 