Well, actually – it’s gin-rummy,
as I may be a little old lady with my stockings
falling down, but canasta is a mystery to me.
Someone said to me the other day,
“Grandmas are just antique little girls.”
Which I find kind of amusing and terribly creepy all at once.
It is shockingly cold in these rooms, where it sweltered before.
I was supposed to be playing two-handed spades,
but tradition won me over in the end.

Leonora Carrington wrote,
“If she wrote about someone being poisoned by a chocolate
it would make her laugh, but if it happened to her –
it would not be funny at all.”
Right, exactly. Well, there’s plenty of time
left over for solitary pursuits and the odd
alchemical process. Though I’d rather be in Patagonia.
Too many weddings to attend. A funeral I can’t get to.
When bibliomantically (is that a word, even?)
consulting the Oxford Advanced Learner’s
Dictionary of Current English with Chinese Translation
I was given the following word in answer to my query:
maybe
Very funny.
Also: mayday, mayhem, maze, mazurka, mead and meadow.
I can read between the lines just as well as anyone else, I suppose –
but this is just plain ridiculous! The squall and clamour of sea-birds
overhead tells me to get out of this house and into the blustery day.
It’s dim in here, but outside that baleful treacle-bun is a’glarin’.
Otherwise, I’ll just continue to sit here in steerage
amidst the dustbunnies and old books
waiting for the man to whom I traded
my heavily engraved silver samovar
to come back with a few shrivelled black potatoes.
That kind of day/week/month/year.