Elaine joins us regularly from the US for our Zoom Open-Mic on the 3rd Wednesday of every month. In this amusing and ordinarily tragic poem, Elaine paints a picture of a couple ageing together, where the every day mishaps of a practiced routine begin to falter.

At Home with Mr. and Mrs. Twinkie 
Elaine Alacron 

“Stand up straight; you’re listing forward,” she said.
He said, “You’re looking like George Washington.”

He soaked his sore finger in a cup of Epsom salts
then later drank it, thinking it was tea.

Once her tube of preparation H lay too close
to her tooth brush; brushing went smoothly that day.

One day he couldn’t start his car.
Triple A said the gas tank was empty.

One day she mistook the Robitussin in her
travel bottle for hypo-allergenic shampoo.

One day in Zoom he forgot the video was on
and took out his dentures and licked them clean.

One day she forgot his warning not to use the pink
ice cubes containing orchid food and put them in her drink.

Every day he forgets to read the “Chew Slowly” sign
taped to the potted orchid, and bites his tongue.

One day she essayed a three-tiered chocolate cake;
shaped like Jobba the Hut, the sludge slid off the plate.

“Kids under 18 shouldn’t know about chocolate,” he said;
divvying up the chocolate hearts she said, “We don’t have kids.”

In sleep he sometimes dreamed of tigers;
when he awoke, he was one.

© Copyright 2021 Elaine Alacron  – All Rights Reserved