a better way to spend lunch
so we played scrabble in the dimpsy room
with spinning towers of books and chit-chat.
while you placed words like ‘so’ and ‘if’ and ‘cat’,
and Molly counted your scores on her fingers,
i saw your world and your sandwich-mayonnaise
fight for a space on your blue~blazer sleeve.
‘crunch’ placed piece by piece by smile by piece
-that’s a big word, crunch, like pasta crunches-
_Does pasta crunch?_ i ask her
-Yes, look_
the blue topped plastic pot pulled from her bag
surprises me with it’s secret of dried pasta bows.
We crunch the wooden bows in solemn silence
and she watches me, nodding encouragingly, then
-you don’t really like that, do you?- she asks
_how can you tell?_
-your eyes are trying not to say things that
might make me feel sad about liking crunchy pasta.-
_I prefer it when the pasta has been cooked_ i say
-oh-
‘no’ and ‘hat’ are placed in the pause while she thinks
-thats ok, I won’t come for tea. Then we can still be friends-
her lunchy fingers rub my hand, friendly despite my flaws.
Woohoo! I’m the first to comment! Yay!! Okay, compose myself and type quickly before *he* finds it, haha.
Oh oh oh this is so lovely and happy and perfect. Your joy is spread through every word holding hands with her joy. It is PERFECT! I am so so so lucky to be able to read your work. Do you realise that? Eh? Well, you really should, xxx Dammit, I think you are amazing.
He can say all the clever stuff now whilst I scurry away.
Hmm, well. It is a wonderful portrait poem, the character full of subtle life. The use of words/the scrabble game gives the work a selfawareness and depth and the ending is beautifully sensibubble, friends if you don’t have tea, almost Winnie The Pooh its naive wisdom. But more than that is Ebby and hence perfectly wonderful and real and much much more than it appears to be.
“no” and “hat” my darling niece? Was this magic? Yes it was before the most subtle and perfect turnaround ending ever. The concrete truth is irrelevant because whatever happened, those two words perfectly, in a way beyond any human logical thinking process are absolutely perfect. I am sorry to mess up your comment box again, but you know, I think better out loud. The forcing of grammar on me is good but your mind is so languagely gifted. This comment will self destruct in 10, 9, 8, (I have a new rule, all my comments are deletable and editable but I want to say these things in public so that they are true.)