Poem 243

Someone’s looking for time out from their usual responsibilities – but they will break in …

( I like the baby crying thinly and greenly, the miniature man chirping curses and waving bean sprouts – and the way the family seems to have been left as a tip … )

At The Vege Cafe

When you upended your purse on the table
       your husband fell out
I thought I had a caterpillar in my lettuce sandwich
but it was your baby

pay no attention 
                               you said
they're trying to ruin our lunch

I put your baby on the side of my plate
in his little lettuce dress
he cried thinly
and greenly
you appeared to be trying to stub your husband out
in the raw sugar bowl but he ran wildly round
                  the table
chirping curses
adapting bean sprouts
                                         into weapons

ignore them you said
and we carried on talking
                                              about how
it used to be ...

when the bill came
                                   with little tears
and folds you made it into two
sets of clothes
and dressed them
and left them
                         under a saucer there