I couldn’t help but think of this as a lovely little pastry bouquet.
For Cee’s FOTD
This test is good in ascertaining
if your dog recalls his training
and, further, it is meant to see
the extent of his fidelity.
In a fire or in a quake,
what action is he bound to take?
Will he quiver, cower and shake,
lose his head and run or quake
or will adrenalin make him faster
to locate and to save his master?
I do not wish to amplify
where your canine’s faults might lie,
but in times of peril he must
justify his master’s trust.
Just leave a burger in a pan
to start a fire if you can.
Feign sleep and see if he reacts
by waking you or if he acts
in his own interest first, and eats
the burger before he retreats
to give you ample time and warning
to view the damage before morning!
Will frenzy beat out appetite?
Or will Fido choose to bite
the burger, and the hand that feeds him,
forsaking the one who needs him?
I know this is a horrible poem, but for once the prompts defeated me. I was going to junk it, but will post it as testimony to the fact I tried. Sort of. Prompt words today were ascertain, fidelity, amplify and frenzy.
I’d rather be footloose, I’d rather be free.
No more will I languish on any man’s knee.
I’ll eat all of my gravy and none of my peas,
get up and retire whenever I please.
I’ll retrieve no one’s underwear off of the floor.
When I use the potty, I won’t shut the door.
I won’t cover my mouth when I burp or I sneeze.
I’ll open the window to enjoy the breeze
or shut my house up as tight as a drum,
eat all the cookies to the last crumb.
I’ll dine for a month on my Turkey Day turkey.
I’ll be selfish and weird and eccentric and quirky.
For as much as I love human interactions,
living alone has its own satisfactions.
Prompt words today are: human, gravy, retrieve and footloose.
I just can’t resist adding a pile of kittens to balance the adorable video of the pile of puppies I just posted. Here they are, Kukla, Fran, Ollie and Roo, days after they all climbed up the bougainvillea vine and over the wall, into my heart. I came into the guest bathroom that they had claimed as their own and found them all piled up on the lid of the kitty litter pail. What’s a mom to do other than grabbing a camera? 
Southern Cross
Spread low on the horizon,
stars stretched on a rack of sky.
Star-crossed lovers that we were,
standing sternward at midnight,
sea spray whispering our names,
sleep sacrificed for starlight,
secure in each other’s grasp.
For dVerse Poets: Pleiades Poem.
Dversepoets.com We are to write a Pleiades Poem. 1 word title, 7 lines, each 7 syllables beginning with the first letter of the title. Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash, used with permission.
This has to be 2020’s most adorable. If you disagree, there’s no hope for you. The worst example of social distancing!!
For this week’s Who Won the Week? Thanks for the link, Fandango.
Mother-to-Daughter
My mother had a tranquil life the years before my birth,
when I increased her headaches in addition to her girth.
I was a question-asker—a most impertinent child,
and my ever-present inquiries drove my mother wild.
The preponderance of these queries got greater year-by-year.
Why was my reflection backwards when looking in the mirror?
Where did babies come from and where were they before?
When she and daddy went to bed, why did they lock their door?
It wasn’t until later that we seemed to trade places
and then it was my mother who put me through my paces.
Why was I coming home so late? Why was my lipstick smudged?
By the time that I was seventeen, I was the party judged.
Thus did life do a turn-about concerning endless questions,
with the one who was interrogator now doling out confessions.

Prompt word today are preponderance, impertinent, tranquil and birth.