A Day in The Life

When she first asked me the question, the sky was snow:
“Honey, what do you really want out of life? Tell me, Rich!”
“Another psychological sortie,” I thought, “One more plaintive plea
to position me threadbare and withered in her spotlight.
Drapes drawn with daylight ebbing, I entered my mental surround
only to find, at first, resentment cavorting with ego.
“You pose that question for some special reason, do you honey?”
Oil of Olay was now a frozen countenance in Ohio.
“Un-huh,” she whispered, and I felt alone on a cold plateau.

“Realize where I stand,” I began, “watch as I reach for a star
even though it may be too hot, or too far or too large.”
“All I want is the opportunity to reach, and to embrace an idea
like it is Venus herself, like it is sunlight on the windowsill.”
“Little I am in the scheme of things great and small,
yet all I ask is this one thing to make the most of each new day.”

Wine-red was the blush in her cheeks and her brow;
a scant twinkle in her eye and her lips a most cautious arena.
“Nobody but me, nobody but thee, none other than a mere human can
try to appreciate the liberty which makes one happy and content.”

On hearing that, she struggled hard to keep a straight face, and said, “So,
understanding you the way I do, (she set her hairbrush on the bureau),
the basic want of life is the want itself--is that correct?”
“O, you see it very fine, my love, much better than most do;”
“forthright your understanding, your beauty--you are the right stuff!”

Later on, we were both hungry enough to eat beer-battered eel.
“Is that number still the same?” she asked, “for the Isle of Capri?”
Found in the home of famous philosophers after it was dropped off,
exceptional pizza accorded real meaning to life.

28 lines
Writer’s Cramp
7-8-20