Shall I compare thee?

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate

And less filled with mosquitoes;

Thou contain fewer picnics

And thou art much sweatier.

Thou lookst better in swimwear

Although

In truth

I have not seen a summer’s day in swimwear.

For this to be a fair comparison

We shoulds’t deck nature in its kind.

Drape each darling bud of May

in lycra

Halter the necks of swaying blooms

With polka-dot triangles

And slather each ripen’ning bud

In Factor 50.

Glue tiny Raybans to the faces of wasps

And miniature flip-flops to the foot of each passing ant.

In truth

I think this sounds like quite a lot of work

And I have lost faith in the comparison.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

No.

No I shall not.