Our poem for next week is Ken Nesbitt's first ever poem from 1994:

Scrawny Tawny Skinner

By Ken Nesbitt

Scrawny little Tawny Skinner
could not, would not, eat her dinner.
Though her parents begged and pleaded,
Tawny would not sit and eat it.

They tried forcing, they tried coaxing;
Tawny said “I feel like chokesing!
I’m so full, my stomach hurts.
I think I should eat dessert!”

She would not eat lima beans;
she would not eat spinach greens.
She would not eat baby peas;
she would not eat cottage cheese.

Pushing food around her plate,
she said, “Look how much I ate!”
But no scrap of food got in her,
Tawny would not eat her dinner.

She would not eat mashed potatoes,
Brussels sprouts or sliced tomatoes.
She would not eat chicken legs,
hot roast beef or deviled eggs.

Tawny closed her mouth up tight,
and would not eat a single bite.
Every minute she grew thinner,
Scrawny little Tawny Skinner.

She would not eat pizza pie;
no baked beans, not one french fry.
Though she was quite thin and bony,
she would not eat macaroni!

What came next, I hate to repeat,
could happen to you if you don’t eat.
Just what all her family feared–
she grew so thin she disappeared.

And though she was hungry an hour later,
they could not find her to reinflate her.
So next time you don’t want your dinner
think of scrawny Tawny Skinner.