Words Like Balderdash

You don't scare me, I told my maiden aunt.
Yeah, right, she answered. Baby, look at you,
You're quaking in your boots. I'm serving stew,
And that's what you'll be eating. When you rant
About your independence, like a plant
That thinks it has two legs, and that the dew
Is ocean spray, as your yacht travels through
Pacific haunts, that's balderdash and cant.

That's why I loved her: words like balderdash
Aren't heard enough these days, and no one knows
What cant is — they think someone simply chose
To leave off the apostrophe and smash
Convention, which my aunt loved, with panache.
She did scare me. Down to my quaking toes.