It's Still Life

And Here’s the Rub …

Somewhere between the bridge over Rudder Creek, which Dad pronounced as crick, and the freshly pressed apple juice stand with that hard-to-miss red plastic apple on the roof, Mum starts telling Dad about the carny man who came visiting yesterday – he wanted to sharpen her knives, Mum said, and this man could fix anything broken in the house, like the wringer washing machine, which wasn’t broken, or a vacuum cleaner, it’s not broken either, and Oh, madam, would you like to buy some brooms? So, she bought two brooms to get rid of the guy. And Dad said something about not answering the door to gypsies or thieving Tom-Dick-or-Harrys that knock on the door. And then Dad pulls the car off the road, red dust rising as the tyres shudder over the gravel verge. Mum hands him a brown paper bag, and Dad leaves us sitting in the car with the engine running while he jumps over a shoulder-high fence into an orchard of cherry trees. And Mum glances off into the orchard, and does her little wiggly-finger-wave to Dad, who’s disappeared up into a cherry tree with his brown paper bag, and my little sister says, Mum, what’s Papa doing? And in the most matter-of-fact-this-is-completely-okay voice, Mum says, “Papa’s stealing cherries, darling.” And now I’m wondering if maybe we’re Tom-Dick-or-Harry gypsies, and if sometimes the truth is just too much information.

There were red roses
And raindrops big as cherries
Some memories stick

A haibun written for the Unicorn Challenge of 1 September/23 based on their image below. Some artwork is created using Midjourney AI, and is identified as such in the ALT text or captioned. AI imagery and poems ©Misky 2023.