ears stuffed with wax—
now hearing Circe
on the inside
*
scraping the ink
off my pages, sending it
for biopsy
*
one palm open
in surrender, the other
rubs the genie lamp
*
not for your pleasure
the winter bird sings—
it sings
*
thinking I outgrew
myself, finding out
I still fit
*
surprise! the genie
says no to three wishes
gives fifteen instead
Mmmmmm… And what delightful, unexpected (duh!) surprises these six are. Whatta nifty place you musta been when inspired to write them. Actually, they’re each distinct, so instead it must have been nifty placeS…
As for the writing being sent for biopsy, which prognosis is our hope: benign or malignant? (Benign IS better, but…)
And lookit: You surrender yourself to the genie and thus receive a five-fold triptych of wishes to be granted—ahh, the verdant abundance of the gifts we possess: we think we’ve exceeded/outgrown ourselves; but we still fit.
And it’s a good thing, those fifteen genie-strong wishes/potentials are ours. Circe resonates within us; and the winter bird is singing for itself, not for our rescue.
Three and six offer the spine to this six page surprise, and a nice thread to weave into them — especially to end on. But the others are tiny snapshots into the reader’s sense of surprise too. Like the ink. What an unexpected way of saying it. And the wax that doesn’t help. Bravo.