lunch on tuesday

‘brave’
is such
an odd word
to use when there
isn’t choice in the matter

more
peevish even
than prickly pears,
these crabby old women,
rallied by a little sunshine,
will transform their pinched maws into
wide-eyed gapes, issuing forth outrageous, trumpeting roars.

not
in cracks
but in shadows
they listen,
lucid.

when
darkness eats
the flash familiar,
out slinks shy
low light
eyes

There was a small stain on the windowsill
which I edited out of the picture.
I feel so unfaithful to the
brilliant rusty drip in the
bottom left corner of
Girl in Chemise,
Pablo Picasso,
1905.

That
little streak
is so beautiful,
it twists the brain
like an ice cream freeze.

The feel of burying fingers
in stones is almost
as pleasing as
the game
itself.

The delightful thing about sharing a camera
is finding the mysterious images that
appear between my own sessions;
I discover all manner
of strange things
with secret
meanings.

The bricks, in particular, made me think.
What were you trying to capture?
What story is hidden here?
Are you plotting plots?
Did you simply
find them
nice?

The longer I thought about the bricks,
the lovelier they seemed to become.
The shapes are pleasantly solid.
They have nice symmetry.
They hold together
this little
home.

Now, quite fond of them, I learn
that the image was a mistake.
You were trying to obtain
focus for a different
shot entirely when
your finger
slipped.

Well, I still like the bricks. Friends,
now, these clay blocks and I
will whisper about the wonder
in a mistaken instant,
a fleeting glimpse
of unintended
now.

your mind works
in wonderful
ways

wide
tired eyes
made plastic from
an enforced holiday of
back-lit screens and bedside lamps

Poirot
lentil moussaka
all-day cotton pajamas
Adam Bede on audiobook
typing slowly with one hand