A Pome As Ernie Said To The Five Find-Outers And Buster, The Dog Poem by Gayathri Seetharam

A pome as Ernie said to the Five Find-Outers and Buster (the dog)
-Gayathri B. Seetharam
I am reminded of my 4th grade
During which I used to enjoy
Books by Enid Blyton
And it was then that I became a big girl
With breasts as large as ripened tomatoes,
Big ones at that.

During my 5th grade
I wrote a poem, If I were a kite
To which my elder sister gave some helpful tips
And I won a book, Cooking with Mother
Which had the recipes of chocolates
And cornflake crispies.

It did not end there
She taught me to say, enticingly,
Who will buy my apples, my sweet rosy apples
When I played the stepmother
In a self-directed version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The green eyed Nihil was Prince Charming
And the cute and somewhat (thankfully)well filled out Jyothi played Snow White.

My father was still alive
And my mother was still lovely (albeit rounder than she should have been)
And full of social skills;
My brother, oldest among the three of us,
Was bright as a shiny looney
In thinking and analysis, dear readers.

My father used to laud me
For my quick silvered tongue
Once I remember, my father
Told a pal of my brother's
That he had an old head on young shoulders,
With not a moment's hesitation,
I chimed in, "But Daddy, then my brother
Has a young head on old shoulders."
My father thought that I was the smartest girl in the school
Who was a wanna be naughtiest girl in the school,
In my defence, I was never Miss Goody Two Shoes.

Do you know why I am reminded
Of my dear departed father
Who has been absent since my 6th grade,
I looked inside a book
That Cathy Primeau, a neighbour, returned
After a lapse in time
It is Agatha Christie's A Murder Is Announced
And it was the first one by the Queen of Crime
That I read and my father had gifted me.

I have this written on the title page
And have thanked my beloved husband and son
For having thoughtfully presented it on my birthday along with another
Book, Death on the Nile and a chocolate cake in 2013.

That is enough of past delights
This afternoon, after working at the computer
In The UPS Store,
I went to a Mexican restaurant, Aztec Mines
Where a customer reassured me
That food is really good.

But having had lunch at home,
I got a take-out order of corn chips and guacamole with pico de gallo
And chocolates at the convenience store, Garden Foods.
I hurried home and ate a small serving
Saving some for my son who has exams
I had an amazing response to the tastiness of the guacamole
And I had to sit down and enjoy the sexual response
That is an orgasmic quickening of the source of my womanhood
I moaned in pleasure
And sighed in happiness.

Later, a friend told me
And trust me when I say that this is true of me;
C'est a la guacamolee (It is said that guacamole)
Muy bein a la senora (Is liked by a woman)
A la senor chiquita (Who likes a man) .

And I sigh and say that I have always liked a man to be mostly good
But for some reason, the song, I am bad to the bone,
Appeals to me for the other song says it all about
Fairly long haired women, Got a devil's haircut in my mind
And if pirates like Jack Sparrow and the hero of Daphne Du Maurier's Frenchman's Creek
Are good and like Robin Hood, steal from the rich and give the poor
But are bloodthirsty souls who say:
"Ho, Ho, Ho and a bottle of rum"
I say that I would like "A Civil Contract" (work related)
From "A Quiet Gentleman" who has fire in his soul
But who has the ways of a "Devil's Cub" with a twinkle in his eye
For if love and marriage is the physical and "spiritual couplings of souls"
Then work is a companion of the female and male psyche
And is essential to the health of the individual.