And I wondered
if the sight of me wavering
excited you.
Like a candle flame dancing,
your palm held
just inside the heat.
Contemplating the risk
of snuffing me out altogether.
Extinguishing that light
with one blow
one fist closing tight.
Did I excite?
Not the exact word for tonight’s Quadrille prompt, but a form of it is there, and according to the rules that’s alright.
Image by Jonny Lindner from Pixabay
I’m very English sometimes,
apologising
to the stranger staggering by,
shoulder swung into mine,
sorry caught in the air
with the dust cloud he trails.
So I’ll repeat
in case repetition makes up
for distance,
for an inability to find fire
until much later on
when I am a city or more
away
and still thinking about bone
and muscle
and a sharp snap of ‘move
now!’
No please.
Image by Grae Dickason from Pixabay
I braided a basket of my fingers,
in case I was required to catch
you
if you fell from any sort of height
or perhaps needed a boost
to reach a shelf
or a step
on a ladder I could hold
once I’d unwoven these hands
to grip the rungs better
if you eventually decide
to climb.
Image by Pexels from Pixabay
Someone comments that she’d never really worked. Not a proper job. Not a nine-to-five, sit down at a desk, shuffle the papers, count the numbers, find the words sort of job. She just ‘helped’ her parents in their shop, then ‘helped’ her husband.
At Christmas my mother, her daughter, takes the carving knife. Skills become ingrained when you park a pram in the backroom of a butcher’s. They get passed down on generation to the next. Not always perfect, but present like the bark and callous of their hands when they take mine. Evidence of everything they’ve given.
She says she never really worked a proper job, not a nine-to-five, like I have. Passes me the cutter for scones that won’t be as good as her mother’s, because she hasn’t got the knack like she had. She was only ever ‘helping’ not working, not like her daughter does, not like I do. She was only ever there in the background.
Autumn is not Spring,
but beauty still grows in her
and there is worth there.
Some days I don’t need a husband
I need scaffolding.
So I can tend to the broken,
the busted windows
the cracking paint,
the guttering that doesn’t drain
when the rain comes in
and all the sediment
circling the drain
but never quite clearing.
Some days I need that from you,
and nothing more.
Carol J Forrester 
You must be logged in to post a comment.