Cupboards

by Susan Peters


I once slept in a beautiful bed.
Under an array of finely stitched samplers,
quilts and frilly things, made by my fingers alone –
starched, perfect bed linens.

I would awake in that bed starving,
exhausted from dreams that made me work and
rework  those impossible equations that punish untidy
minds.
Plagued with fevers so hot that your hair, if you were there,
would have caught on fire if you came close.
There were insects of my making in the kitchen of that house -
I let the birds in through the window so the birds would eat those
insects  and then deliberately, without conscience,
let them pick the cupboards clean,
until I left.

It seems pleasantly unfair
that now I awake next to
you.
there are no insects and no
fears. The coffee is thoughtful,
kind,
a blue jay peeks in the window, calls
“Thief!” pecks at nothing and hurries off.


* * * * *

Susan has come recently to poetry and is experimenting with the discipline of form poems.  She has published several poems on the front page of Open Arts Forum and in Amethyst Review.  She divides her time between being a consultant and poetry.