Friendly Advice Poem by Vinita Agrawal

Friendly Advice

She said I'd become dust
if I didn't step out of the house,
didn't meet people.
I'd be like a yak-tail fly whisk -
different, but useful only to drive away flies.
As boring as a whale bone,
as dull as a lesson in syntax.

She said she'd make me a palanquin
if that was what it took for me
to go out and mingle,
leave the cage, the social apoplexy.

A woman needs wiles.
Needs to be pagan - like a flagon of old rum.
Gracefully rapacious
like the rainbow that wants both ends of the sky, she went on.

After I'd put down the receiver,
I concurred silently,
I gazed at the sagebrush plains outside my window.
Knew that life didn't grow back without roots.
Good air and sunshine were just not enough.
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