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Mustard and Teals

Oh, I don’t know,

Mustard and teal was never my thing

Until she brought the ivy in                                       

And placed it on the hall table and said,

We’ve arrived.

The branches of oak outside

Filled the foyer window as we peeled the paper

From the walls.

Layer and layer,

Peel by peel,

Until, we arrived, as she said,

Clinging to the lath and plaster

The last and original

Shred of

Yesteryear

In mustard and teal green.

It has to go, I said.

I know, she said.

But wait, and with watercolor and brush

Dug from the sewing room box

She reproduced it on the back

Of a housewarming greeting card

In Yellow Ochre and Vermillion Green

As I peeled the mite soaked paper

To its demise.

When all was done

She snapped a photo of our shaker style hallway

Fit for a contemporary architectural digest

Framed it with the wallpaper watercolor

Hung it on the wall

Near the window with the oak branches peering

Through the window of the hall watching,

The ivy on the entry table,

Sitting

That said,

They’ve arrived.

Deborah T. Johnson

December 2022

Orchid Dust

It slipped to the bricks,

A flight

From a window

Open at

Midnight,

The orchid, given to

Polish the feelings

Rasped by an unpolished man.

A tick of the finger nail 

A click on clay pot 

Sent it to its two storied 

Demise

Swept up with no trace

By the dawn patrol

Of street cleaners with brooms

Swept into dustbins 

Or maybe even rescued 

With no clue to it’s retinue 

Of accommodating women

Silenced with a wink, a gift, 

A threat that cooperation 

Was much more prized than their worth

So its satisfying crash

Echoed in brick alleys

Soothed more than the trinkets  

Bestowed as gags.  

The beautiful orchid 

More cherished dead 

Now, than it was alive. 

WHAT DO YOU SEE?

What’s your first feeling,

Not the first pictures you saw 

but what's your first visual feeling? 

Is it the kitchen and you're 3,

The margarine stick the open fidge

The taste of butter 

The thing you craved at 3,

No dairy, not allowed dairy,

so you ate the margarine, 

Took slices off it 

Cuz you craved the butter.

But what was your first thought,

Your first feeling,

The first vision

That grinds thru your mind 

In 8 millimeter flicker,

In tiny photos 

Black and white realities 

Copies, and copies, with dates,

Or VHS

Taunting you now with static lines,

The realities of failed technology 

Out-dated,

You didn’t it back it up? 

So, what do you see? 

What does your mind's eye feel? 

The atrocities of your memory.

Not banal pictures of Santa encountered,

But the frying pan

On your mother’s temple?

What do you see?