Your Angel

 In a curio shop you bought a small angel.

The first thing the two of you did was to eat each other's hearts,

Hospital or cemetery? I asked, wiping spatter off my sleeve.

We have a nest inside Danielle Steele's blastoma, you said.

Take us there. 

Little soft-spoken angel, my partner's darling

breaks playmate's noses when things don't go right. 

There is the law, and there is what is clearly sick and wrong.

The two of you swing on a blade between the two.

Brilliant Ideas, you get them by the bushelful.

Marriage, madness, ill-advised rambles, and your angel

smashing the crucifixes.

Yes, I tried setting her on fire but your tears put her out.

It is her nature to be unnatural. It is mine to try to survive.

Dawn breaks. The neighbor's rooster kills itself. The sun lists.

What about our family, you ask? I scream, I want a divorce!

You smile and it shatters the Hummels like a cheekbone.

_______________

American Girl In Euro Kicks

 

After midnight on the narrow street

high on a memory magnolia sweet

like a magnet where you don't belong

smiling lady sings a lonesome song

Across the plaza, under the bridge

where the cognoscenti live

down where a butterfly becomes a dove

what in the devil are you thinking of?

No mashed potato, no lime and gin

where the crows get black

sleep on the foxglove, dream of a peach

on a honey stack.

Hands like a swan's wing, feet like a hoof

slip the landlord, sleep on the roof

and in the morning, fleece the mark

mix with the rando's who live in the park

No chocolate candies, no baseball game

where the crows count six

collect the cats eyes, call off the dogs

keep the licorice sticks.

______

for Word Garden Word List--William Wordsworth

Rosey

 I'm not much for babies.

Oh, I dispense a few sweet noises on demand

like a reluctant gumball machine,

but as often as not, the nickel gets jammed and there I am,

stifling a yawn.

My own child was different of course, but he's grown and gone.

I look around, and it feels like my heart is bunged,

So today I'm on the sidewalk in front of a pet supply store,

navigating the cages, looking.

I'm drawn 

to the shy ones,

the small ones,

the hurt ones,

the lonely ones. 

C'mere baby, come to mama,

Come on-a my house, my house-a come on.

I will make you bold.

I will make you safe.

I will make you well.

I will make you loved. 

It's mother-magic, presto! and we'll make a ton of it

out of thin air.

_______

It's All In A Name

My name is Agnes Millicent MacLaury-MacFaquhar,
but in the villages they call me

Popsiqued'ononono Kanalbabwa Sesquemamba, which means
"She who glides like the most graceful of butterflies across the sky at dawn",
although the house boy tells me it really means "Old Monkeyface."

My father, Aldous Pimberton MacNaughton MacLaury,
was a manufacturer of women's undergarments.
When whalebone corsets went out of style, he built a meat pie empire
before moving the entire family here, 
to Port Fakankanza on the Chibumanian coast.

At any rate, I do love this place.
Every morning the Juboopari birds gather in the Momchagoosian trees
right outside my window.
My late husband, Horace Charlemagne Genghis "Jack" MacFarquhar,
used to collect the feathers and spent hours sorting and preserving them,
over in the east gazebo where he and Bruce Pinkfellow used to spend so many hours.

When Jacky died, I didn't know how I would cope.
Thank goodness for Bruce and his knack for handling money,
not to mention his kindness toward me.
I know what you're thinking, but he was always a perfect gentleman,
and such glorious taste in clothes! Those ascots were real silk.  

Still, I think we may travel on to Zigfatten Island next summer,
where they say that Mount Visnakunu sends up clouds of ash every afternoon. 
Yes, "we." I'm so sorry, I never introduced you to my late husband's ward!
He found her wandering on Fumba Gizella Avenue, 
without a penny to her name.
When he offered her a sweet, 
the horrid little thing kicked him smartly in the shins,
and ran off, but the local constabulary rounded her up in short order.

She's plain and mousey, and will never amount to anything,
but here she is, such as she is.
Say hello now, child. 
Well, it seems the cat's got her tongue.

Her name is Jane.

Ow! My shin!

Shay. Her name is Shay, my mistake, though lately she fancies herself "Fireblossom",
and is always scribbling on the plaster with a marker. 
I'll be giving her to the Gypsies presently.
________

for Bjorn's prompt at Real Toads. He wants us to write about our name, which for me is extra cool because, unlike most people, I chose mine myself.