LIFESTYLE ADJUSTMENTS

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Rooibos tea, chicory coffee,

old songs that no longer feel happy or sad,

the dripping tap in the kitchen,

rice pudding for kicks,

and beautiful food without salt,

as we nibble our bread

made from flour drained of colour.

 

I can smell the sky 

like a sticky Tupperware lid.

It’s going to rain and blossoms

will fall, there is decaf tea 

 

to commemorate something

and rented sunshine on the shoulders

of lucky Facebookers, 

in Italy, or Spain, seated at cobbled cafes,

waving and beaming,

like angels of luck

and finally I say to you,

 

Why don’t we take an overnight bus

out of here? Why don’t we

run away?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bio:

 

Meg Pokrass is the author of First Law of Holes: New and Selected Stories (Dzanc Books, 2024) and eight previous collections of poetry and prose. Her poetry has appeared in RATTLE, Plume, New England Review, Five Points, The Pedestal, American Journal of Poetry and elsewhere. Meg’s flash fiction has been anthologized in 3 Norton anthologies of the flash fiction form, most recently Flash Fiction America. She lives and teaches in the Scottish Highlands.

 

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