Thursday, April 5, 2018

NaPoWriMo 2018



 Daily poems written from prompts for April poetry month.


April 1       

Too Be Fooled

I am a fool.  Maybe I like that role and maybe
I don’t. It definitely generates good laughs.  Even
for myself. Once Dad fooled me by fibbing  
my forty-something sister was pregnant with
her fourth child. He said, “She’s embarrassed
to tell you.” I kept saying, “No, impossible. Oh man,
you’re kidding, right? What will she do?” “April Fools.”

Then there was the time my friend told me
about a terrible parent she counseled who only
fed her child Goldfish.  I imagined filleting tiny orange
fish and frying them in a pan. Or maybe she ate them
whole, dropping wiggling fish into her mouth like
in the cartoons. There you have it, my gullibility. It’s not
a bad thing being a fool, but it’s humiliating.


2.      April 2 
Mannerism
She’s foolish, you can see it in the way she dresses,
forgetting her age and her status. A woman of 60

should be demure, short haired, graying, and sedate
of dress: not so robust and youthful a walk nor a hunger

for the bedroom.  She laughs loudly and without constraint—
and she points: remember, it’s against  Miss Manner’s

rule, the way she eats with gusto instead of dainty bites
She’s foolish! She’ll never land a man acting that way.

April 3:
New Crayola Colors

There’s Dill Pickle green and Mud Puddle brown; there’s
Linoleum gray and Scuff Mark orange. There’s
the purple of a blueberry stain and red wine left
on a beige table cloth—French’s yellow, Nosebleed red,
Wilted Hydrangea white. There’s the blue shadows
under eyes and Kinky Black mascara; Dog Gum pink,
and Grass Stain green. There’s Plumber’s Grease gray
and Gangling Cyst red-orange—Faint white
and Snow Dirt Charcoal. There’s the blue of a pulsing
vein and Under Fingernail taupe; Tangerine Rind
yellow-orange, and Sundown lime; There’s Dry Skin
beige and Melted Chocolate dun. Brain gray.

4.

New Fridge Delivered Today
On lines from Charles Wright

I have nothing to say about the mess
left in dark spaces. Or why I live near the edge
of decomposition. The edge of growing mold and black liquid,
a continent where penicillin runs rampant. Counsel
my inner maid to recycle and scour often.

I have nothing to say about the pile of dishes
in the sink nor the vanity of immaculate housekeeping. I have
nothing to say about women with honorable cleaning skills.
All year I work like a bird breaking up the dirt in a flower pot,

not hungry, not pure of heart, just trying. All year as my new husband,
sweet and patient, moves old food from the back to the dark
garbage outside. What true advice godliness gives.

April 5  

This is the Beginning

68 could be good, it could be bad.
I’ve learned that happiness
is made by being precisely in the moment.
Not late, not overly early, but gratefully
completing transitions on time.

Photos of younger women, pretty
girls living with gusto, are no
longer relevant. This time
of my life isn’t based on the importance
of results, it is for slowing activity,
eliminating ego, striving less.

One version of being a senior is of a doddering.
old woman. Not me, though I pledge to no longer
be so convenient to others.  I might appear grouchy.
Time spent in public, well, it’ll be by choice—blatant
ignoring may happen. Just look at history of old age.
More women than men shuffling about out there. 

Women take over. We’re converted to the head
of our families. Our personal temperaments demand
respect. Matriarchs awakening to importance,
but at the same time to caring for less.  It is
really a relief; it is exquisite to age, to take on the pride
of tomorrow and tomorrow, again and again.
 


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