Little Peanut Papaw Poem by Daleen Enslinstrydom

“I not peanut papaw, ” she said,
sitting on the garden chair as if she is already grown up
despite the fact that she is only two years old.

She likes to argue with everyone and everything.
Jacky our Jack-Russell is teasing her.
“Do not bite me, ” she says in an angry voice
while she brings a rosebud to her nose
that she has just broken off.

She turns her head and says:
“it smells pretty, mommy.”
In her pink playsuit she looks like a little nymph
and when she laughs the table shakes.

“I not peanut papaw, ” she says
as she rings the edge of the rosebud
with her finger and says:
“Mommy, it bites me.”

In that moment she lets the rosebud slip to the ground.
Carla our other Jack-Russell wants to nibble at it.
“Leave it alone, Carla. It’s still pretty.
Do not eat my flower peanut paw-paw, ”
she shouts and her golden eyes sparkle.

“Mommy, Carla peanut papaw, ” she says.