Not for the squeamish

Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer was to write a "TMI poem." I tried to think of something that I was willing to write about--and post publicly!--that might include material that would cause someone to chide "TMI!"

I am not a devotee of scatological humor, in general. Nevertheless, my rescue cat's tragically inbred digestive system rather fascinates me. Her stinks are so bad that we nearly gave her back to the rescue agency from which we adopted her. (She was part of what was, at the time, the largest animal rescue in Maryland--over 300 animals, many too sick to save.) I am lucky that, unlike my husband, I have a relatively poor sense of smell.

So here we go. I'm rather embarrassed to have written this....

Neko, Maryland’s Most Flatulent Cat

Like a fuzzy, olfactory Basquiat she paints the walls
with stenches organic and chemical: vinegar, diesel,
dung, death. Artistic remove is her aim: take in the work
and stagger back, wonder at the creator even as you flee,
hand to mouth. She was raised in chicken wire
among hundreds of neglected cats; puny when rescued,
she immediately expelled a stillborn litter no one knew
she carried. If this Guernica of stink is her protection,
it fails: when cuddled, knuckle-petted, ear-rubbed,
she soaks you with sulfur, and when you stop your caresses,
a candy-pink-toed paw, claws lazily in transit,
reaches to smack you gently, to demand you get over it
and love her again.

Seen on Muddy Creek Road

Arrivistes

the undertaker birds

with plucked pink wrinkled heads

don’t care where you came from

they care where you made your last trip

where you lay your burden down

education, money, beauty

skin-deep concerns

escape their baleful gaze

when they assess, muster their colleagues,

bend to close study, all that matters

is a modicum of taste.

On a sour note

So not in the mood. Rather down. Nonetheless, I'm here, if late.

Partly Doll


Locked in the castle of her brow,

a marble edifice, beautiful forever,

she struggles to turn thoughts into winks,

words into wine. Her eyes are framed

by the finest mink, her lips as sweet

as cocktail cherries. How will she

summon or beckon but by the luck

that luck will spy that perfect face?

How will she breathe through a nose

like a hazelnut, a piece of great price?

Still, it’s a sweet gilt-edged shelf

she sits upon, looking down.

Today's prompt: Water

Puddle

mudluscious, e e cummings said,
digging his lowercase toes into the spring
pudding. This is the death of the temporary lake,
April Brigadoon by the pea patch,
where for one afternoon
salamanders sip quick, ants parade,
and the lady in church shoes prays that Old Sol
will toss off his hazy sheets
and suck it up.

More prickly fiction

I did just spend a weekend with dear old friends. This is not about them, and I'd hate it if they thought it was. Still, there's a freckle of truth in everything.

Quick first draft here. I'm supposed to be working.


At Seventeen Again

We say we’re the three musketeers,
but it’s a tribe, like certain families and religions,
with a manufactured history. We were children
together. We are bone-deep friends now.

Julia and Jamie reminisce
about things I never did. How many high school nights
did they burrow into a boy’s chest,
their mouths bitter with Bud,
while I watched Carol Burnett with my parents?

Remember homecoming? Jamie says
as we shop for middle-aged chadors,
menopausal masques. I wore out my shoes.

Julia laughs. Remember Rocky Horror at midnight
after the spring musical?

How many brain cells did we lose? Jamie is a doctor now.
We did so many lines that night. Remember the powder room
in Ginny’s basement?

Julia looks at me, open eyes lonely. No, I don’t. And I want to
squeeze her hand, just for a second.

Quickie

It’s Not Me, It’s Me

gathering my hair in one hand and pressing
I transform into a pre-Raphaelite

I could cut off my hair, my arm,
my family for love, but it will not come

no matter that I learn to make asparagus risotto
no matter that I can read the Kama Sutra

upside down no matter that I am good,
that I am healthy, that I can love almost anything

once I get used to it
and gathering my limbs and squeezing

I can shape-shift into Shalott, Salome,
Scheherazade of a thousand stories

all of them about the same person

Happy April!

If you don't already know about Robert Lee Brewer's site, which offers a poem-a-day challenge in April, you need to check it out. He also has prompts every Wednesday, even when it's not National Poetry Month.