Prompt # 33: An Affair to Remember (#1373215)

About This Author

My name is Joy, and I love to write. Why poetry, here? Because poetry uplifts its writer, and if she is lucky enough, her readers, too. Around us, so many objects abound to write about. Once a poet starts with a smallest, most trivial object, he shall discover that his pen will spill out what is most delicate or most majestic hidden inside him. Since the classics sometimes dealt with lofty subjects with a lofty language, a person with poetry in his soul may incline to emulate that. That is understandable. Poetry does that to a person: it enlarges the soul and gives it wings. Yet, to really soar, a poet needs to take off from the ground. Kiya's gift. I love it!

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Sep 21, 2006 at 2:16pm

#1373215

Edited: September 21, 2006 at 5:01pm

Prompt # 33: An Affair to Remember

by Joy

(about a cashier)

I still hear the music of
her fingers tapping
numbers; she does not comprehend
who the child is.

First, I stare
long
at her, without blinking, while
the shimmer of a distant light
from her hair--the blonde smudge
on burnt umber--writhes
to infiltrate my retina,
mismatching the frail blossoms,
rather the thistles, of young years.
My tongue, burning, tastes ginger,
the hidden roots of evil,
and I laugh
out loud,
with repetition,
pointing a finger
at her. Look,
who's the tyrant now!

Not good manners, but revenge
is sweet, and
this is the woman
my father ran away with.