Thursday, August 25, 2016

Jiffy Mix






It's late August. My self-imposed deadline for the first draft of the next novel is Sept. 30. I'm about 3/4 of the way there and stuck like some pre-Cambrian creature in a tar pit. Hoping to tease the Muse back, I've been wandering around in the literary toy store, playing with flash fiction and poetry. Just for kicks; no great expectations. (Yes, those last two words were deliberate.)
So here is one of the poems on which I have spent very little time, refusing to get all serious and angsty over it. I'll save that torture for the "real" writing.



Jiffy Mix

Still. they stand on grocery shelves,
This Jiffy blue and white boxes
Redolent of strawberry-filled sunshine,
Summer Sundays.

Thirty-three cents, then, for biscuit mix.
One egg and one cup of water
Rendered it to viscous batter,
Summer Sundays.

Batter baked to golden shortcake,
A hundred sweet, sliced berries within,
Released its buttered fragrance,
Summer Sundays.

A cavalcade of childhood days
Remains within those Jiffy boxes,
Now relegated to the lowest shelf, and ahlf-forgotten
Summer Sundays.