Don't go yet. I’d hate
to part with you all thinking it was my idea
to end a golden age. Someone even blamed me yesterday
for the reversal of the longest economic expansion in history.
So embarrassing to be held responsible for all that loss.

Look at me: don't you love
my perfectly draped orange dress,
how it enhances my shoulders?
Bet you want
beribboned red hair such as mine.
(I forgot my shoes. Note to self: I need to get organized.)

Listen. It wasn’t really a blue and white porcelain box. A rough
little jar, nothing glamorous. My mission, to punish.
I merely did what he told me to do.
Had the capacity to earn an Olympian medal for chaos.
Always did love bad advice and a flaming torch.

Didn’t know the raven of hope could be so easily confused.
That so much misery could occupy so small a space.

Okay, wait. You with the shopping bag—
I’m not finished.
I admit I still embellish. It was a large earthenware jar
with ample room for evils but a small silly crow.

All the more reason to be tired of having losses of paradise
always blamed on me.