Worried that the mayors of Baltimore and San Francisco would just offer each other crabs for their Super Bowl bet, I used the Awesome Column to get San Francisco novelist Armistead Maupin (Tales of the City) and Baltimore mystery writer Laura Lippman (the Tess Monaghan series) to agree to write something complimentary about the winning city if their city lost.

Maupin decided that since the Ravens are named after a poem, he would deliver his ode to Baltimore in verse.

The Virtues of Baltimore (After Pondering Weak and Weary)

By Armistead Maupin

Who makes Baltimore so fine?

The Duchess of Windsor or Divine?

Poe and his Raven or Mama Cass?

The great John Waters or Ira Glass?

Thurgood Marshall or Adrienne Rich

Barry Levinson or – sonofabitch—

That linebacker who took a stand

For marriage equality in Maryland?

I lift my glass with a way-to-go

To Brendon Ayanbadejo.