Mini-messy

I stood on my tiptoes,
Trying to see more clearly what was hiding
In those baskets too high
For me.
I reached out to feel the fruits:

The apples smooth-and-slightly-sticky,
Red green an yellow like
Jumbled up traffic lights.

The pears,
All pear-shaped
Except for one,
More potato-shaped
Than anything else.

The strawberries,
Red and green some mostly green
Some are hard and some are
–Oops!

Banananas
Lellow and curvy
They look quite bouncy
But they’re not really…

Ay-pric-cots
Small and soft with two bumps like
Little bums!
But they’re orange
And I’ve never seen
An orange bum.

Next cherry
Mum said
Not-the-cherries-ok?
But I like cherries…

But in the cherries there’s something else
A small hand looking for cherries
Touches my small hand
Looking for cherries…
Giggling we quickly take
Our hands away
(Mine has a bit of cherry juice on it now)
And peek under the tablecloth:
It’s a little curly girl with red all over her face
Hands and dress.
Giggling we run away
Except that we run
The same way
To our mums talking and
Being very annoyed when we touch them with our
Sticky hands.
Silly little girls
They say.

 

Plastic Pigs and Pizza

I was bored so I asked a friend for three words or a sentence to write a story/poem.

This is what I got: pig pizza plastic

…and this was my answer:

On a plastic poster a proposterously painted pig prepared a perfect pepperoni pizza as passing people paused, pondering its purpose.

 

Family Meals

Some families sit at a table,
Mind their manners,
Talk of grown-up stuff as if they knew everything about anything.
The kids or the mother (or sometimes even just the girls) get the dishes and clean up afterwards.

Other families take their meal in front of the TV,
Not speaking, not looking at each other,
Then everything goes in the dishwasher and not a word is spoken.

Some families each take their plate, like at a buffet
And then go to sit somewhere alone, do homework, watch TV, read…
And you can often find various pieces of cutlery, plates and glasses around their house.

Some families have the boring table full of grown-ups in the dining room
And the fun table of children in the kitchen: eating food with their hands, challenging each other to try to slurp their spaghetti without using hands, getting the whipped cream, ice cream and sugar out for any desert and getting some all over the place.
Then the children go to bed while the adults stay to tidy up and wonder why maple syrup is dripping from the ceiling.

Some families sit at the table and argue about everything,
They have such different views that the only way for the conversation to end is declaring a stalemate at the end of the meal,
Picking food from different dishes around the table.

My family…
We talk about “what did you do today?”
And then the meal ends with us poking each other, saying silly things, making funny noises and making faces across the table…
Washing the dishes takes place in good humour and songs we sing, my brothers and I and in these times I’m happy to be just who and where I am.