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Morning With Noah

Squatting, naked again, penis a small question mark
aimed at damp tile, you fix me with my own eyes.
You have plans. What do you need?
Something
to powerize this sea-bus-train.


Beyond the abandoned bath towel your
appealing apparatus waits. Somebody's shoelaces
bind a painted ferry boat and varnished ark: blocks,
carved animals and one yellow, plastic duck
teeter aboard.  I think those car keys are mine.

Power,eh? I pull up your jogging pants
and make you an offer from my private reserve:
unpolished stones, real feathers, a pottery hen.
Pulling off the pants you slowly shake your head.
You require a steel potato masher, plastic
ice cream scoops,and my best heat resistant spatula.
It's to shoosh up this difter.  Also, a lunch bonx
AND two kinda tape.


At barely one you riffled my wallet
and came to me bearing dollar bills and plastic cards.
What have you there? Baksheesh, you said.
At two my stones were treasure. You named them:
Heart, green and cool: Mars, the fist filler:
all speckled pebbles, Poppy-seed. Now, almost four,
you have outgrown my symbols: you take what you need.

This assortment of vacuum cleaner attachments,
for instance, and Grumpa's umber-bella.
They are important in your construction. At last
I get your head into a sweat shirt. Tell me about this.
This is where we're going where my fodder is.
And I will have a fodder AND a cat. This is
all around the world where we are going, see.
It's raining.

 

 

~by Penny Gerking
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Penny Gerking moved from her profession as registered nurse to writing, editing and teaching some years ago. Her work has appeared in print and on-line journals, and she is working on a young adult fantasy novel. She holds additional degrees in Philosophy and an MFA from the University of Washington Creative Writing Program.

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