Garbage? – Day 28 (questions)

Garbage

and why do I have to wheel

the garbage to the gate

on a night as bitterly

cold as this?

You don’t want the garbage

left to fill the yard; bring in

rats maybe.

Why did my daughter buy me

this bright yellow garbage bin?

Because it’s the just right size

Because it has a tight lid!

No rat could ever make its way

in; into this lovely, just

the right size garbage bin.

Why do I have to lay aside

my warm slippers; push

my toes into dark

mucky gumboots?

Gumboots are best

for walking the frosty night

grass. Crunch, crunch, crunch!

Why is my cat Slippers

out at the gate taking her time?

Slippers is out at the gate

to let all the other street cats know.

This is the garbage for Number 8.

She’s a superior cat.

But has no one told her

all garbage is garbage?

It’s the bright yellow bin

we ask no questions of.

When will Slippers learn that?

Benita H. Kape (c) 28.4.2021

Notes: “Our prompt today (optional, as always), is to write a poem that poses a series of questions. The questions could be a mix of the serious (“What is the meaning of life?”) and humorous (“What’s the deal with cats knocking things off tables?”), the interruptive (“Could you repeat that?”) and the conversational (“Are those peanuts? Can I have some?”). You can choose to answer them – or just let the questions keep building up, creating a poem that asks the reader to come up with their own answer(s)

Slippers in the sun. I wont go so far as to make it moonlight. But I think I could have. The night is absolutely glorious. Too lovely to think of the cold.

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Snapa-abulous – Day 27

Snapa-abulous is a made up word of the like of the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and after a frightening incident 2 years ago.

Snapa-abulous 1 and 2: 3

Few people see my snapa-abulous,
very few, being as it’s in so delicate
a place. A few times it pulls; that’s
not the rule though, the few times
it makes itself felt.

Picture a stent insertion, a screen:
little twiggly movements up there
on the screen; stent insertion very near
the heart. I felt safe, interested. Then
voices around me grew quiet. The screen
shuts down: the nurse talking quietly
in my ear: something about another
Team. The moment of snapa-abulous!
Snap; no sound; snap; somewhere
deep in my body.

Four hours Team 2, to whom I owe everything.
When I awoke the horrible pain. My shoulder;
the way I had lain, and possible moved
to odd angles as Team 2 with tremendous
skill, found and removed twice broken wires.
Snapa-abulous. My wound took a long time
to heal. I couldn’t see inside the body where
snapa-abulous had occurred. For weeks
I was tended in hospital, and then
in my own home. The possibility of stents
now abandoned. Stent Surgeon standing
next day at the bottom of my bed.
“I may never touch you again,” he said.
I kept my thoughts to myself.

How often my mind traces the journey,
from my groin, up, up the body to near
the human heart.

Nerves cut in the groin.
I waited for that too to heal;
but I am numb, inner right leg,
from my groin to my knee.
Snapa-abulous 2. Two for the price
of one. Three, Snapa-abulous 3 actually.
My mind still struggles with all this.

Benita H. Kape (c) 29.4.2021

Notes: “In today’s (optional) prompt, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem inspired by an entry from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. The entries are very vivid – maybe too vivid! But perhaps one of the sorrows will strike a chord with you, or even get you thinking about defining an in-between, minor, haunting feeling that you have, and that does not yet have a name.”

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