Going for Coffee
Hot gravel blisters bubble under her big toe,
Twists and hops, remembered hurt in every step,
Sharp stone, dirty path winds ever farther.
Juke joint music rides the dry summer air,
Stifling heat crests, then cools, stereo snaps silent.
“She left hours ago, man.”
There was a day when I was twelve.
I sat upon a purple blanket, on the green field beside the park’s baseball diamond.
The sun blazed hot.
My bare toes searched through cool blades of June grass.
I had no cares except everything.
Happiness.
***
44 word quadrille for this week’s d’Verse prompt: happiness
Upon waking from brief escape,
I’m anxious, timorous.
Sky’s darkest blue is unrecognizable.
For all-consuming shades and shadows,
Blanket dreary these cold, unknowable hours.
Is it morning or midnight?
I tuck my exhausted heart beneath the crumpled duvet,
And await a calm of light.
***
Before our worlds unraveled, then knotted,
Before life pulled our friendship apart,
Untethered our hearts, then shattered,
Do you remember,
Our laughter and blue stained fingers,
Our common goal, our only enemy,
The laden branches and brambles,
At the edge of your grandma’s garden?
44 words for this week’s Quadrille on d’Verse Poet’s Pub. The prompt: brambles.
Slid-sideways on marble, fell-tumbled at market
Sucking lemons is better than swallowing bitter pills.
No sleeve’s wide enough to wear that bloody heart.
Pouring sorrows over arching muddles
Like rain flooding gigantic puddles.
Silly isn’t it to waste a day being
bucolic,
melancholic,
alcoholic.
Jo-Anne Teal, Writer 