It's Still Life

I. Miz Quickly: Life is (indirect definition)  

Ideally

It was her idea of ideal

with a scarlet bougainvillaea
climbing up and over, hanging

here and there like an unhemmed skirt,
and it had to wrap all the way around,

and be wide enough for three over-
sized wicker chairs and footrests,

two for those talking, and one for
the person listening, because you

always need three people for
a proper conversation, she said,

and a table positioned for iced tea
and crustless sandwiches made

from fresh snowy white bread, and

ideally it needs a deep gentle slope
of a roof, so the summer sun doesn’t

make one go squinty and wrinkly.

Ideally, that’s what she wanted, but
her house was ill-suited for a porch.

II. Poetic Asides: Struggle

A List Poem: It’s a Struggle

to put on ones socks
to lean and reach for toes
to cut ones toenails
to paint ones toenails colour
to pull oneself off the floor
to admit one’s shrinking shorter
to sleep through the night
to find a public loo in London
to remove the lid from a jar
to stand-up without groaning
to sit down and not free-fall
that pluck hairs from ones chin
to see dust on the table
to ignore dust on the table
to remember what you forgot
It’s become a struggle…

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These poems/prose are draft versions, written in participation of Miz Quickly’s prompts and Writers’ Digest (Poetic Asides) November poem-a-day challenge. The aim: to produce a chapbook for submission. ©Misky 2022 Shared with #amwriting on Twitter. Image ©Misky 2022 AI-MJ.