This picture is from my dear friend Cari's art studio. She inspires me to keep creating!
Backlog
The last few weeks I have been cheating.
Instead of writing fresh poems to publish
for my weekly site, I posted saved up ones,
ones that settled a little, no body odor included.
Currently going to the grocery store feels as impossible
as flying to Stockholm to attend a rave.
So I scrounge dinner for rangy teenagers,
stretching a head of Romaine,
they don’t complain about salad again
if there are croutons and Caesar dressing.
There is one spotted banana
nobody will eat in a banana swing
my ex-husband gifted our household.
It is shiny chrome metal contraption
I hated at first, a hammock for fruit,
so silly, like those paper towel flagpoles
you soon tire of.
But somedays it is the most fun anyone is having,
a ménage à trois of puckered lime, browning banana,
one questionable avocado.
I think the cats climb on the counter
and push them when we are all away.
Writing poetry, painting, strumming a new song
doing anything where there is a hillock,
some oomph required, requires bribes.
Second cups of tea, chocolate during,
a warm bath and tucking in early after.
I need to write a poem about rape culture
that demands a hotel room with room service.
I want to tell young people
and old people and all people
don’t put off your dreams,
not for one single day, people!
the time j u s t g o e s.
The highlight of my week
was a friend texting me about her own ex-husband.
She used lots of expletives referring to his backside-
dumb ass, fancy pants, ass wipe.
It was a long marriage, he is a good man.
I haven’t told anyone it was I who broke
the large crockery planter on the deck.
I won’t admit to my supervisor
I faked being sick to get out of writing with
sullen young adults.
Conspiracy theories have been a subject
of reflection with my children.
They don’t know who the Beatles are but heard
Paul McCartney died and a doppelganger is standing in.
Some say the comic Andy Kaufman
faked his death.
What would I do? I wonder.
Where would I go?
What wild imaginings would I host?
Who would I invite?
How can I do a little of it now?