Housewife
       

On the smooth glass of oiled wood
where upside down umbrellas shed

their new dying in jet seeds and gold
dust, I swirl and scatter the stilled

life centered here, gather red ragged
scraps, wash and buff the pollinated

tabletop pearly clean with my tongue.
I am no longer optimistically young.

I rise and spread and fan and fade.
Bruised petals splatter like blood.

While wearing tulips' damp pollen
like a saffron-colored reptilian skin,

I blink and squint in day's bright sun.
My owned afternoon is now half gone.

On the other side of a tightly shut door,
I hear like fire's backdraft an unbeaten

green ocean roar, about to overrun
that table, these flowers, my vocation.

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Copyright © 2017 Jo Pitkin All rights reserved
from Rendering
Salmon Poetry
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission