Thanksgiving Villanelle

Yes, last year's Thanksgiving entry is back again since:

a. Now I don't have to come up with anything new
b. I might as well get a bit more use out of this poem.


(FYI:  A villanelle is a nineteen-line poem with two repeating rhymes and two refrains. The form is made up of five tercets followed by a quatrain. The first and third lines of the opening tercet are repeated alternately in the last lines of the succeeding stanzas; then in the final stanza, the refrain serves as the poem’s two concluding lines. 
The form could be expressed as: A1 b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 A2.)

                            

       A Cautionary Tale

          Do not surrender on Thanksgiving Day

          As the table creaks and groans beneath its load,

          For on your waistline those calories will lay.

          I sit as in Aunt Pauline will sashay

          With green bean casserole, onions a la mode.

          Do not surrender on Thanksgiving Day

          Bowls tour the table in an endless relay.

          Potatoes, stuffing, they tempt and they goad,

          I fear on my waistline those calories will lay.

         “Have more!” Grandmother will lean in to say

          and to sweet faded eyes my will has been bowed.

          Do not surrender on Thanksgiving Day.

         The butter calls richly, the gravy betrays,

         Pies wait with menace, and whipped cream forbodes:

         Soon on my waistline those calories will lay.

         Too late for me - my stretch pants cry, “oi vey!”

         Save yourself and resist the family code.

         Do not surrender on Thanksgiving Day,

         Don’t give a new home for those calories to lay.

Happy Thanksgiving!