This week’s assortment!

5869.
Deep pools
Of somber
Solitary
Thinking

5870.
the plum forgotten in the refrigerator
softens and dissolves.
I retrieve it. I grieve it. I toss it to the ants.
 
5871.
what a manicure job and I watch it perform a
discreet glissando
on the glass countertop of the jewelry display case

5872.
Her fingers on the keys of the flute strangle the tune
the dead weight of its corpse compresses the very air
Those lessons were a waste all right.

5873.
we hear the rasping voice of a knife in the kitchen
here in the dining room where we wait
dinner sits uneasy in our stomachs

5874.
The hope in saying goodbye is always
that in the next place
we will not have to do it again

5875.
the moon
in this drizzly night sky
wobbles in the streetlights’ glow

 
5876.
I am crying
behind my rain-streaked glasses
and no one knows

5877.
you click the clasp on the necklace
on the first try.
you are not a nervous bride.

5878.
I need to think
in small pieces
warily

5879.
I try out different voices.
Recognize none of them. Approve of all of them.
I let them loose. Revel in the fracas.

5880.
Appraising fingertips
intent
feel the shapes. hear the shapes. obey the shapes.
Paint.

 
5881.
Oh you impetuous laundromat mob of shiny
steel dryers
baking my bedsheets and shrinking my socks
burning out the elastic in every pair of
underwear I own

5882.
You are disappointed.
The bathtub and I watch you cry
in the mirror over the sink.

5883.
Do you think it’s a portent
or is it just a bad dream
coming to rest at last

5884.
Where did it come from
This big mess that suddenly we’re in –
Accident or luck?

5885.
Trembling, I approach the washer
I raise my offering of filthy clothes
before its unblinking Cyclops eye

 
5886.
the postcard forwarded to the trash
its message reads Dear Helen:
(ketchup smears) (coffee grounds) (grease spots)

5887.
Please wait. Room 1818.
Wait there. In Room 1818. Wait. There. Please.
Room 1818.

5888.
hidden in the dense foliage
the nest
holds four cracked and oozing eggs

5889.
the saturated jungle vegetation
the soft rotted soil it grows in
the heat the insects the alien cries
of my GPS in its bewildered distress

5890.
a man and a martini or two
who said they had car trouble
up on the highway

 
5891.
the ocean somersaults
across the sand
the beach giggles

5892.
the exclamation
smears the air
leaves a stain on my memory