Cricket Poem by Jane Brunton

Cricket



Spiky cacti sprout cloth flowers of purple, pink and orange wool. Bushes bear sequined, bell shaped, skirt flowers. It’s laundry day.

Home-bound sheep hurriedly crop their last bite of the polluted provender masquerading as wayside grass.

A scrawny lame dog ambles by with nose to the ground. I throw bread slice by slice from the clouded window. A crust flies over the precipice. I close my eyes at the thought of the animal plunging to his death in search of it.

The smell of diesel fumes hangs heavy and we can neither come nor go. Cars have arrived from the direction of Puyo creating a hopeless snarl on this one lane open to traffic.

Night rushes quickly in and spoons us into a bowl of purple jello with cherry tail lights and pineapple headlights. Whip cream clouds ride below the setting sun.

Blackness now and we are finally moving. Mercifully we can no longer see where death awaits us inches away.

We rush past cool-blue fishbowl rooms aswim with red velvet chairs and gilt tables.

Finally we reach humid Puyo and our hotel. During the night I awake to a cell phone imitating a cricket.

Or is it a cricket imitating a cell phone?

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