Cooking Up a Bad Poem

The way you mix feelings is you take a good old fashioned lie—no more than four pounds worth, drop in a good dollop of candied sentimentality, add a puppy dog, a baby, or somebody who died of a broken heart, mix it up with a good six pack of barley mash well fermented, pack the whole thing with a bouncy abab rhyme scheme, and let simmer until the smell of sorrow overwhelms reality and even the hardened criminals and cowboys in the room are dripping tears.

Please note: amounts for all ingredients except the lie can be adjusted—the more the better. But do not add more than four pounds of lie. Nothing can candy-over more than four pounds of lie, not even puppy dogs and babies by the bushel.

A recipe from the Lee side