Monday, June 11, 2007

MAILBOX BLUES by Dave Wellings

(This work is a response to one of our monthly assignments. We were to write about the recent phenonemon in our community where microwave ovens are being recycled into mailboxes.)


MAILBOX BLUES

It’s mounted on the white picket fence,
Now no more than a token
Of an empty marriage that didn’t make sense:
Both were terminally broken.

I worked all hours to keep us afloat
And even attempted to save,
Only to return to a re-cycled note –
“Your dinner’s in the micro-wave.”

You would be out somewhere, (dancing on tombs,
Attending a witches’ coven?)
While I’d come home to the cold, empty rooms
And peer into the micro-wave oven.

I didn’t mind the odd Lean Cuisine
Or the frozen casseroled mutton,
If only you’d occasionally been on the scene,
Equipped with your own de-frost button.

The kids are grown up and live on their own
But your influence fatally lingers:
They can’t get a meal without using a phone.
They still think fishes have fingers!

It seemed only right when you took your leave
And the micro-wave gave up the ghost
To use the oven again to receive
The divorce papers coming by post.

Dave Wellings ©

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