What did you expect?

The arborite of tabletop is smooth and cool and even.
Reach now for the shining phone. Feel its warm monolith, tented over in your pocket. For extra reassurance, stroke the disagreeable cat. It is deep velvet, simmering skin, removable whiskers. Only you can elicit its purr, calm its condescending glare. Don’t you dare stop, or forget the filaments of the ear.

Push up, now, from your chair by the fire. Feel and hear the sharp crack of the ankle. The protesting knee, surely out of warranty. Shuffling’s horizon. Whiskers follow you to the kitchen. Treat time for the Terrible Two. Vet says four each. You say “What!? They will kill me in my sleep!” Aha. Four. Not fourteen for these crack addicts. Keep your bedroom door closed tonight, and wear earplugs.

Grip the smooth silver of the fridge door handle. Pull to open. You must be losing weight, ’cause inertia’s not enough now. There. Ahh. Hear the sucking door seal, note the frail flicker of the light. There’s a last bottle of Heineken. It is smooth and cool and even. Sit you down, father. Rest you. Take care not to cut yourself when that twist off cap doesn’t work.

The bones remember

A little boy of three who misplaced his mother.
And, as he grew,
a bird of shadow brought to him
a terrible knowing.
Aloneness and fear.
How to bear?
How to do?
Who will care?
Singleness incubates a strange and strong beauty,
and the bones remember its learning.
At marrow’s end they keep, in plasma, our stardust.
Revere them. Lay them well,
that a life may knit with the cosmic.

People Watching

A love so well expressed in so few lines…

mkvecchitto's avatarWriting and Reflections

People Watching

I am a thief
I steal your words as they fall from your mouth
I watch as you shrug off your ill-fitting garment and dance in the rain
I capture the moment your face lifts slightly
I memorize the way your beaming smile transforms the moment
I explore the silence as you find your way
I count the years as you stoke those fires
I count three, four, five
and as you wave goodbye, bowing to the usual customs
I write bits of you into every story

photo: picjumbo/Pixabay
prompt: The Sunday Whirl – Wordle 395

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77

ELLE's avatarelleguyence

There is only the ocean;
waves, tide, surf
are simply parts
of the whole.

I used to build sandcastles
close enough to seashore
that they’d wash away, clean
before I got attached.

I manufactured moats
drawbridges and gates
spiral towers to hide treasures
keeping intruders at bay.

I never did need knights
as much as I told myself I did
I was a fine protector
a kind ruler over myself

but you were like gills
and I breathed new air
the salt of the sea
the grit of the sand

and I decided I’d move
my sandcastle away
from that rising tide
and invite you in, too.

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A primal encounter

Man of Woman. Woman of Man. Child of the First.
Another, of the mirror, spies them through reed curtain by rocky slope.
Skulks, indecisive, for a time. The first he has seen, away from home hearth.
His fear, embodied. As the cat will hiss and spit, as the dog contrives a face and guttural growl upon the advent of the foreign other, he shows himself, thinking to do murder. Thinking to take their catch, feathered runners caught by the neck. Thinking his animal lust might be assuaged.

But Woman, Man, Child have wandered far, and know the defense of desperation.
He they subdue, and show their sabers of stone. When he awakens, bruised and bloodied, his ham hands are tied tightly with gripping vines. The timorous child brings to him meat, still warm from the hunt. He has no language. Gobbles the flightless bird-thing as it’s hung before his mouth. They take him down to the reeded pond. They drink, fill up skins. He eyes the several birds dangling from thongs about their waists. Man picks one up, holds it before him, points far and away to the setting sun. Motions with his hands that there are many of these things, a distance away. He must come with them, to eat.

And, along the way, he stops to gather plants in bunches. Eating the good parts, he offers some to the others. Their fear is plain, and they put their palms downwards. He eats more, smiles and pats his stomach. Wins their trust, and they do eat as well. In their walking, he shows them many kinds. Those that are good, and those that will kill.

In his home hearth, he had been a diviner, one to whom was given the hunch. One who had commanded his coven, so that they would prosper. Now, he would bring them the beasts of the land. And now, Woman, Man, and Child would gather without fear.

Disobedience

My body doesn’t understand my brain,
or do I have this backward?

Calcified circuits, perhaps.

Worn out paths.
Easy to go off the rails.

When eating, I bite the inside of my lower lip,
at least once a day.
The cut can’t heal, and it swells a bit,
offering a better target for next time.
Is this a consequence of something,
or a symptom of closet masochism?

Don’t “inhale” your food.
This is good advice which I do not follow.
Surely a symptom.
Storing nuts for the final winter.

I used to keep a long handled brush in the shower.
(For back scrubbing, and the relief of pesky itches.)
It was lost when we moved.
Now, I shower in an alcove of stone.
Hard, undrillable, impenetrable.
But advantageous to one with the itch.
I push up against it, and rub back and forth.
Ah, but what endorphins!
Each day, I stay a little longer.
This very morning, after the steamy session,
my wife said to me
“Why is there blood on your shirt?”

There is an expression, sometimes used to make one shut up.
“I’m going to duct tape your lips.”
For the darker side, you can see it on crime shows.
But I do it for real, every night,
so I won’t get leaks from the air mask.
Doc says “that’s just plain wrong”.
Also, I turn up the pressure.
Cardinal sin, because the sleep doc is supposed to do it
when needed.
But I found out how, and it helps to a degree.

I have never grown up, I think.
They are all ready to give up on me.
Disobedient.

Sweeping changes

at fifteen, I think,
friend said “I hear you got a job”
“whaddya do?”
“I sweep”, I said,
and Buddy laughed his donkey laugh.
I felt a little small.
“You’ll be climbin’ the ladder real quick, har har!”
But, self taught I was,
minimal supervision. Wounded pride and all.

At thirty,
sweeping changes came to my life.
I now wore ten hats,
took home a briefcase full of work some nights.
Guess I had climbed the ladder a bit.
Still I swept.
When deadlines hung over us,
we worked until the bell, and after.
I sent the guys home,
and I swept.

I had a boss
who had big responsibilities,
for our plant and for others.
He came out back once,
saw some of our guys sweeping,
grabbed one of their brooms,
showed them the correct way,
embarrassed everyone, including himself.
Yelling, waving his arms.
As fate would have it,
our company president witnessed the show,
made as if he didn’t see it.
After that, Captain Queeg was sacked.

The worst thing I ever swept up
was a cocoon of dead kittens,
all stiff,
born in a pile of skids.
Thrown onto the floor.

And now, today, I sweep the back hallway,
where my own kittens do their business.
Finally I have learned to use the knees,
not the back.
Trouble is, the knees are going.
Soon now, soon, I will have to hand over the broom to another.
Maybe sweeping will change them, too.