They sit covered by turbans.
Each head wrapped in a different color.
Pastels and bright bold shades of pinks and blues.
Pretty patients
who glance around the room
eyes
dart like humming birds
tying to solve a puzzle.
Some read last year’s
magazines.
Others gaze.
But all search quietly.
Absolute silence.
Tulips in a garden.
Waiting to see
if spring will arrive.
Jim Pahz
Another Reason My
Mother-in-law Doesn't Like Me
My refrigerator --
a botanist’s delight!
Have you ever seen such a crop
of blue velvet
fungi?
And what of this casserole sprouting brown fur?
Any
day now, my lettuce
in its airtight coffin
will become
a clump of
slimy-sick seaweed.
Perhaps some
salt would help?
The fruits are something else!
Some, like
this apple, simply
grow old
collapsing on the inside
leaving a small brown globe
to depict death’s terrain
in relief.
With the banana
death
leaves a shadow.
It begins as a small brown rash
gently
caressing the fruit
until the banana is swallowed in darkness.
Bananas
die a quiet death --
and then scream at me
from the
top of
my refrigerator.
Cheryl Pahz
