*The Haystack’s Painting
The haystack’s painting hangs in the Met;
the painting of the haystack, that is,
the one by Monet, not by van Gogh,
the rose-blue, snow-lit one with the haystack
in it. The haystack has this deal
with many painters, also Millet,
appearing not for a fee, nor a stake,
exactly, but for the sovereign right
to have your eyes back whenever it wants.
*By convention, an asterisk indicates an instance of improper usage. All titles are drawn from such examples of bad grammar in Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).