Twenty

You didn't want to come out.

The warm enveloping liquid in which you floated tempted you to stay

You didn't like clothes either

Preferring naked and free to swaddled and snuggly 

You lasted at the breastaurant for exactly one year

Knowing with great certainty the pleasure of your own juice cup

You dislocated your shoulder at four months in your exuberant attempts at walking

The training wheels came off your bike at five years old

You always chose the highest slide

Fearless your old aunts called you

Purple and sparkly duds filled your closet

I could always count on you to collapse into a sleepy heap after birthday parties

You are my daughter 

You have always remained you

Never losing your identity

Formidable in your opinions

Fervent in your beliefs

Steadfast in your will to succeed 

Believer in meliorism 

That the world becomes better through human effort

Off you go

Heading out on your own

Moving forward

Good thing you missed the memo about not growing up

For though I dearly loved the little you

I love the phenomenal young woman of twenty you have become

©kcasady2014

Scripts

Dear sir

"Why haven’t you called?

I need to have dinner with you

Life requires lively conversation and tasty food

Agreeable drink and laughter

Flirty banter

Yet you continue to ignore me

No matter that I am older than you

Just past youth and finely mellowed beauty often blend quite well

Age is not of concern

The depth and heft of mind counts more than the weight and shape of body

Still…

Every time I ask the Goddess for a phone call from you

She responds with a ring up from someone else

When I call out madly for your companionship

She sends you in a dream

Negating even the possibility of a sandwich

Or of a cup of coffee

Or glass of wine"

Her imagination conjures up scenarios

Fodder for fantasies

Food for daydreams

She shares her inventions with the Goddess

Who in turn serves up the most delicious delusions

She and the Goddess collude 

Creating scripts of illusory conversations in impossible locales

"But really sir...

You neglect me with your rude disregard

A polite 'non' to my 'respondez s'il vous plait' would do

'De rien'

Oh it's nothing"

She'd say as her heart crumbles

But the Goddess taps her on the shoulder

Come she says

We must rewrite the scene

©kcasady2014

Caprice

The bolts strike

Flung over God's shoulder

Capricious tosses of fate

Piercing innocent hearts

Jagged electrostatic flashes

Thrown from heaven 

Hurtled upon human rabble 

The huddled clusters and lone wolves

Smiting them

Some flail and fight for a bit

Others gasp and succumb

A few survive

They clutch each other 

Meld together

Praying to grow smaller

They stand still

Grow silent

Hold their breath

Standing amidst the cries

They mutate into nothing

Making themselves invisible

I open my eyes 

The priest infuses her ashes with holy water and incense

Offering prayers while handing the white draped box to her sister

I say amen

The gravediggers lower the coffin into its forever nest 

The mourners step up to complete the burial

I throw three shovels of dirt

I close my eyes 

©kcasady2014

Perspire

She always said perspire

Never sweat

A sign of her time

When diction counted

And manners held a sacred place

Just after the war 

When the men came home

And the women left the factories

Stopped building bombers and ships

Returned to their kitchens

Bore the baby boomers

You're perspired the queen of the house told her husband

Clean up before you come to dinner

And so he did 

Drowning his male scent in the shower

His pheromones that plunged his jockstrap lover into ecstasy

Draping him with carnal euphoria

Diluted into drain water

You're perspired the queen of the house told her daughter

Change your blouse before you start your homework

And so she did 

Smelling the wetness under her arms

Remembering the daring kiss that  drained her body of its fluids and left her limp and damp

I am perspired said the queen of the house to the late evening's ambiguity 

Swaying alone on the porch swing

Deftly removing her underwear

Allowing the sweet night zephyr to seep under her cotton house frock

Wantonly caressing her moist body

Drying each salty bead of sweat with ephemeral care

As she remembered the days of shipbuilding and bombers

When the men went off to war and there were no kitchens or children to tend

©kcasady2014

Void