He stood at the door with a forlorn smile
and a hand-drawn mustache—
a comically tragic pastiche wearing
nothing but tennis shorts and socks.
My name is Rodney, might I
come in?
I know who you are. You see
my name is Rodney as well.
On the day that she left, Miriam
took his heart and his iPad, but
it wasn’t the end. It turned out
to be just the beginning.
K-Mart had bio-copiers on special,
and now she was printing replacements—
clone after clone, except that none
of them performed as expected,
so she sent all the Rodneys packing
with directions to his place in their
pockets.
There were Rodneys in the attic
and Rodneys in the cellar. The
laundry was filled with tennis shorts
and socks, and they queued in the
bathroom to paint their mustaches.
The house is over full, I’m afraid.
You’ll have to sleep out the back,
with clones fifteen to twenty.
All the lonely Rodneys missed Miriam.
They moped around the garden consoling
one another with insincere assurances
that the other one wasn’t to blame.
But he was the original, and he knew
the truth—Miriam didn’t print them
to find a new lover. It was for
the pleasure of kicking them out.
sources
Kazuo Ishiguru’s masterpiece Never Let Me Go and an implausible answer to the Eleanor Rigby question.
artwork
6× magnolias
dedication
to G and Y for embarrassing me comprehensively with ‘Steve and Eve’
This is a very nice piece of work, IMO, Steve. Well writ. I like the magnolias also, but the poem is a beaut.
Cheers,
Frank
Thank you so much Frank. Your work is marvelous, and I’m turning an embarrassed red.
Ha! No, no need for that. I like what I’ve read of your work, and that’s a delight for me, because I’m a touch picky, I reckon, in terms of what appeals and what doesn’t. I’m glad to have met up with your site.
Cheers,
Frank
So that’s where all the lonely people come from. Heartless Miriam and her K-mart special. I love it!
Glad you enjoyed it. I think it’s mostly plausible. Once I checked into a hotel room in Florence and found a drawer packed with brand new identical tennis shorts. For clones I presume. Wicked Miriam is slightly less believable. In my experience, she’d be far more likely to keep repeating her first mistake with the Rodneys, like we all do :).
First, thank you very much for liking my scratchboard drawing “Branching Out.” Second, your work is beautiful.
Thanks, magnolias and the computer do most of it :). I was impressed with ‘Branching Out,’ unusual and mysterious.