I take her snide remark at breakfast & frame it analytically.
-
During the backyard potluck I have a sudden craving for walnuts.
-
I stand at the kitchen window and watch the ladybug cross the pane.
-
At the flea market I search for my very first camera with no luck.
-
During the Baroque concert that evening I sit close enough to notice how the blue veins move around beneath the transparent skin of the dark-haired cello player. When she stands to accept the applause I realize her dress in adorable. I pretend to remember it from the performance a month again, so she won't be offended.
She never pretends
to be charming!
But on occasion she does
cross my Rialto a time or two,
wearing only her faults as if they
were a sign of good taste.
Can you guess her trade? Clue; it
resembles a beach house in the Bronx.
Onions however, usually smell like onions.
Whether she actually smells them or not, she drops
by for dinner uninvited. She brings one green tomato.
Two little chickadees. Three plastic Madonnas that
resemble the Vietnam War. Four place-mat sets
celebrating the glory of gay marriage. Five fairy-tale
aprons with their own deck of playing cards. Six
genital kinships about to give birth to the Blues. Eight
fancy detox clinic lobbies. Nine Liberace lookalikes.
Oh yeah, and ten hypotenuses to JFK's assassination,
cleverly disguised as Swedish meatballs.
Maurice Oliver spent almost a decade working as a freelance photographer in Europe. Then, in 1995, he made a lifelong dream reality by traveling around the world for eight months, recording his experiences in a journal instead of pictures. His poetry has appeared in The Potomac Journal, Circle Magazine, Bullfight Review, Tryst3 Journal, The MAG, Eye-Shot, The Surface, Wicked Alice, WordRiot, Taj Mahal Review(India), Stride Magazine(UK), Retort Magazine(Australia), & online at subtletea.com, undergroundvoices.com, friggmagazine.com, tmpoetry.com, zafusy.com, girlswithinsurance.com, & interpoetry.com (UK). He lives in Portland, Oregon where he is a tutor. His poetry blog can be visited at www.bloxster.net/mauriceoliver.