Tag Archives: Sunday Writing Prompt

A Woman Alone: for the Sunday Writing Prompt

11 Replies

 

A Woman Alone

I am airborne in the hammock,
the small dog on my stomach,
but patting the bigger dog
on the ground below us
to assuage his jealousy.

I watch this week’s brand of butterflies
popping like popcorn
above the audacious flowers
of the tabachine bush,
and that confused hummingbird
that has mistaken the Soleri bell for a flower.

I eat pizza at midnight
and swim naked in the pool at 2 am.
My cats know my sins
and like me better for them.

When I talk to the air,
it is unclear whether I talk to the cats
or to myself.
Who might the neighbors think I am talking to?
Some new lover?
Most probably not.

Those of us who live alone
are never really quite alone in Mexico,
where private lives
are so easily shared
in spite of walls.
It is as though
sounds echo more easily
in the high mountain air,
and we become one large family,
putting up with each other’s secrets.

But, no responsibility
for husband or children or roommates,
we sink into the luxury of selfishness.
Sleeping at odd hours,
wearing our pajamas from bedtime
to wake-up
to next bedtime,
calling out to the gardener from behind curtains,
accustoming the housekeeper to our sleepless nights
and long mornings of slumber.

No one to explain the junk drawer to,
or the large accumulation of toilet paper rolls,
for which you have a definite purpose
that you never quite get around to.

The luxury of a nude body
no one else short of the doctor
will ever see.
The back of your head
where snarls can exist
unchallenged
until the next trip to town.

The Petit Ecole cookies
you need not share
with anyone.
The unmade bed uncensored.
The best hammock always your own.
An internet band unshared.

Only your toothbrush in the glass beside the sink.
Every leftover cup of coffee
sitting on surfaces around the house
one you can sip out of
with no fear of any disease
other than the ones you already harbor.

Alone.
What you always feared.
That fear now behind you.
You were so wrong.

 

For Sunday Writing Prompt: The Quiet One

Noises in the Night

31 Replies

Noises in the Night

She was six years old and alone in a room that had noises in the wall. She would curl up into a tight little ball under the covers and concentrate on the friendly sounds––the tapping of the pendulum of the clock which hung on the wall beside her bed and the water gurgling through the heating pipes. The muffled voices of her parents down below in the living room. She liked these noises. They made her think that she wasn’t alone.

But she could hear other sounds of the summer night–– the sudden loud popping noise that she thought was a gun until daddy told her that it was only houses settling, or the sound of the elm tree outside her window scraping against the brick on the chimney or the wind as it whined through her screens, making the venetian blinds scrape against their wooden window frames. She could hear things in the walls, too––noises that sounded like people walking and high shrieking noises that daddy said were just mice and not robbers.

The sheet felt muggy on her bare legs and she kicked it off and rolled over. She lay on her stomach and slipped her hand beneath the pillow, sliding it back-and-forth against the trapped coolness of the percale. She glanced at the noisy pendulum clock Santa had brought her for Christmas to help her learn to tell the time. It was her first real clock and it was in the shape of a Shmoo.  She could just make out where its hands were from the light of the streetlamp shining through her window. It wasn’t very late.

She flipped over and slid her legs over the side of the bed, feeling the slight stickiness of the linoleum on her feet as she walked to the window. The air had cooled a bit and it had started to rain. A slight breeze tickled the hairs on her arm and sifted the rain onto her nose as she pressed it close to the screen to smell the mustiness of the wet night grass.

She wondered when her older sisters would get home and come up to bed. It was lonely in a room all alone in the upstairs of a house that had robbers in the walls.

 

For MMM’s Sunday Writing Prompt

A Change of Season, Sunday Writing Prompt

13 Replies
It was beautiful fall in Sheridan Wyoming when I arrived on Oct. 1
as well as a light rain.
Patti and Jim decided it was time to cut back the tall ornamental grass before the snow came.
\
and a different sort of precipitation covered the front walk. No tall grass to be weighted down!
And color vanished from the world as it was covered by snow….
The front walk was transformed, and my socks got wet walking to the car!
The back porch went from a light dusting to a heavy icing,
What we braved to reach Sanderson’s Store.
The neighbor’s fence acquired its own piles
and we all turned to inside activities: cuddling the dog,
(Some of us turned into little piggies at the prospect
and were sent outside to work for their appetites.
They had few objections, quickly bending over
Young artist
And later rode along as their dad drove me home.
Morning brought Patti’s scrambled eggs
as well as icicles which in the heat of the sun, melted slowly away.
began to melt away,
drop after drop.

This is a post from a few years ago, when it was still possible to travel to a place where there is a notable change of seasons. In my part of Mexico, the changes are not so observable. The hills get lush green in the rainy season and after 6 months or so, get a bit beiger each month until June, when the rain starts and they green up again. Things bloom year round, so otherwise, it’s hard to tell what season it is. For the past 19 years, my years have been broken into rainy season and non-rainy season. Keeps it simple.

For the Sunday Writing Prompt: Change of Season