Mermaid on the Beach

Soft

my scales

glisten in the sun

my skin

my breath

held long

like my hair

flowing

seaward

with

pearls of foam

________________

dVerse prompt on mermaids

At the Checkout Stand

I masked up and went to the grocery store.  It had been three months of home delivery.  Now I was on my own.  I went early and social distanced most of the time.

There was lots of produce and salad dressings.   Flour,  not so much.  Yeast, no way, but still hopeful.  There was bleach and a few hand soaps.  Alcohol on the bottom shelf, way in the back.  You had to bend over to see it.  Plenty of eggs and cheese and milk.  A few boxes left with Aunt Jemima still pictured with perfect pancakes.

The checkout clerk wore a mask and asked me if I had found everything I needed.  I hesitated; she waited for the answer.  “Do you think we will ever have yeast again?”          I asked through my mask.  She thought I said, “Do you think we will ever have peace again?” She replied and finished with “only if people will do the right thing.”

trust the food supply

find more even in a siege

in summer we feast

 

__________________________

dVerse haibun prompt on a shining moment

 

 

Homicide

How did George Floyd kill Aunt Jemima after he was already dead?

Aunt Jemima served delicious pancakes

RIP George

RIP Quaker Oats Aunt Jemima

Here comes Uncle Ben

with a pot of fluffy rice

soon to be snuffed out

another white on black

homicide

——————

Birds of Prey

SHOCKING to see the cardinal eat a gecko

thick beak designed to crack seeds & nuts

one would expect it from a blue jay

not this red bird with its sweet song

now a gecko hangs from songbird beak

lifeless & being shaken

its head consumed then tail

legs gnawed away

it looks like a small fish

yet too big for the throat

of such a now ravenous bird

_________________

I looked out the window today and saw this cardinal with a gecko. Unexpected metaphor to the current events.

Death

MIND body spirit

brought together

glows through

the portal

of what we call death

_______________

dVerse prompt on portals

Fix It

WE are going out to fix the garden

dormant ground for years

overgrown weed trees &

shrubs now tree tall

it is a miracle anything survived

in thick Texas soil

parched & cracked in summer’s

ninety degrees & climbing

our sweat pours out

_______________

dVerse prompt to write a quadrille with the word fix.

Picking Cotton

MEMORIES of cotton picking days

picked along with men and women

all over the South

people of all colors

fourteen footer dragged behind

filled with cotton

picked from each boll

start when you’re old enough

to hold a sack

sang in harmony

as we picked

infant scooting behind

too small to pick

“cotton on the roadside

cotton in the ditch

we all picked cotton

but we never got rich”

_____________

photo from SMU Degolyer Library

Outbreak

His shadow shouts—

don’t betray yourself

stay inside

it is your alibi

months later

on a nightmare scream

he went outside

when his shadow

could not be seen

______________

dVerse prompt to use Maya Angelou’s line his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

Seedlings

 

SEEDS were small

wrinkled

dried out

until soil held them

& moisture

fed them

now

tender & true

____________

dVerse prompt to take a seed name and write a poem. I chose “tender and true”.

Hope to Return

Maybe at Christmas

or next year

to return to Portugal

learn the language

hike on a rugged

coastline

to the surf

of Mediterranean

or Atlantic

hope to return

_____________

NaPoWriMo prompt to the concept of return. Last day for thirty days of writing poetry. So hoping there will be a return to traveling.