I set out the money for my massage guy on the coffee table as I’ve done a hundred times. Fifteen minutes later, I heard a commotion in the guest bedroom. This is what I found:
Bride’s First Meal
Bride’s First Meal
It was a layered casserole of maize and squash and beans
whose contents were indigenous and well within her means.
She blanched and drained and layered in a metal pan.
She followed all directions and plotted out each plan.
Dabbing on her favorite essence, she donned his favorite dress.
With the front door open, she didn’t have to guess
when he was walking up the lane and so she would be able
to greet him with a soulful kiss and dinner on the table.
But, her first endeavor which she’d hoped would be delicious,
in fact was not ambrosial, but instead pernicious.
It seemed as though the entire dish might be having troubles
as it rose above its boundaries with ominous pops and bubbles.
In short,
These were the things that went amiss
after his entrance and their kiss.
She rued the day that dish was born.
The squash was tough, as was the corn.
Instead they went to Burger King
and ordered one of everything,
came on home and gorged on it,
so their first meal was quite a hit.
She pitched her failed attempt within
a nearby waiting rubbish bin.
She was smart and so good looking.
He didn’t wed her for her cooking.
Prompt words today are ambrosial, endeavor, indigenous, essence, metal and lane.
“J” Words For Midweek Madness
Individuality for dVerse Poets
What you want for me to be
subtracts from “I’ to add to “we,”
and yet it does not set me free,
but traps me in normality.
You will not hear me make a plea
for rules of set society.
I simply choose to take the knee
and insist on being me.
For dVerse Poets: Peer Pressure. Image by Vlad Hilitanu on Unsplash
The Waystation
The Waystation
Awakening in the half light, upon investigation,
I find the sun is still in early stages of gestation.
As the day swells out her stomach from its early morn enclosure,
her womb is still half empty, eschewing full disclosure,
I sink into my pillow and wait for the full light,
held prisoner by the darkness, promised freedom by the light.
One part pulled by sleep, the other rues this hesitation,
caught here once again within the dawning day’s waystation.
Prompt words today are half light, eschew, stomach and investigation.
Opening or Closing? FOTD June 22, 2022
Familial Disapproval
When he swears when the champagne cork hits him in the eye,
my brother’s new fiancee utters a “My, my!”
then swipes the bubbles from her upper lip with polite tongue.
(She’s squeamish about swear words and she calls the cork a “bung.”)
Her brow furls with referrals to anything unsavory.
(She prefers her history minus genocide or slavery.)
“If you can’t say something good, then don’t say anything at all.”
she says, and then says little but “Oh, really?” and “Y’all!!!”
She’s a proper southern girl with mild disposition.
She would not think to put you out or cause an imposition,
yet when I ask if she is hungry, she admits, “Yes, just a bit,”
and when I put the tea cake out, she eats three-fourths of it!
She never wastes her precious time when visiting by sitting
and conversing with the family. Instead, she brings her knitting,
and bottom lip between her teeth, she counts her knit and pearling.
concentrating on her knitting needles’ rhythmic twirling.
You might surmise she’s not my favorite, or second, third or fourth
girlfriend he has brought home from East and West and North.
This Southern girl sticks in my craw, I just cannot get used to her.
And you can bet I’m dreading the day my bro’ gets fused to her.
Prompt words on this Solstice morning are: hunger, disposition, squeamish, bung, referral and knitting.







