Since waking that Sunday, April had been in a tizzy, anxious to reveal her creativity to her husband Jeff. She’d have snapped the laggard from his snores but, having found the bed empty, she’d hurried to the kitchen. She was crestfallen to discover that the room was deserted. Her suspicions that Jeff had ducked down to the garage to check out the new guy were later confirmed.
Having nailed down her inspirational words on a notepad, ready in the bedside table drawer as advised by a writer’s magazine, April awaited Jeff’s return, flitting impatiently from feeding chickens to vacuuming the upstairs hall.
The moment she heard the front door open, she grabbed her masterpiece, and rushed downstairs to corner her husband. As quick as she had been, Jeff was already crunched into his kitchen chair sipping coffee out of his Best Dad cup. The inspired poet cleared her throat and proudly recited her verse.
Red berry Ruth
Blueberry Pie
They all had enough
For Mendelssohns eye.
After the final phrase settled into the room, only the sound of a persistent wasp, caught behind the ill-fitting screen, cut through the dead-sea silence.
April waited anxiously, aware that it would take her husband–who was no poet–time to digest the verse. But when, instead of words and wonder, a stilted heaviness descended, she despaired.
Always slow on the draw when replying to his wife, this time Jeff had been stunned into silence. He scratched his cheeks rough from his early morning shave and swished his coffee around. “Wasn’t Mendelssohn they guy who said two peas aren’t alike?” he asked tentatively.
“No, dough boy,” April snapped. “He’s a composer.”
When she scribbled down the poem, she recognized that Mendelssohn was famous but for what she wasn’t sure. She’d checked online to discover that Mendelssohn, although long dead, was a celebrated musician. Although she often listened to music when she was feeding the cows, she couldn’t remember any of Mendelssohn’s tunes.
“Would I know any of his jingles?” her husband asked suspiciously.
“No, but it’s music poetry people know.”
“You’re sure you got the words right?”
“Of course, I wrote it down as soon as I got up,” she said, handing him the paper.
Jeff tugged his glasses out of his shirt pocket, cautioning April not to nag about the two broken pairs
he’d similarly stored. Peering hopefully through the grimy lenses, he slowly picked over the lines.
Red berry Ruth
Blueberry Pie
They all had enough
For Mendelssohns eye.
“Shouldn’t it be Mendelssohn’s eye with a possessive mark?” he finally asked.
Didn’t that sum him up, April thought. Where she discovered poetry, Jeff was caged in a world of punctuation marks.
“Never mind,” she’d snapped, snatching the paper from him and sailing out of the room. Fortunately, for all concerned, the crack of the screen door slammed shut muffling his query about lunch.
April headed across the field on a brisk walk to let off steam. Was she expecting too much of Jeff? After all, everyone couldn’t be a poet nor could everyone appreciate poetry. Jeff did contribute to her art by driving her into town in stormy weather to attend her writing group. She wondered if Mendelssohn had had a wife and if so whether she had been understanding of his efforts.
Finally, her legs started to tire, and April decided it was best to go home and call a truce. As always, it was she who had suffered but, from all she read on the subject, that’s what made artists great: suffering.
She’d make some waffles. That should bring Jeff back to the house. And she’d not even comment when her husband drowned his breakfast in Maple Syrup. She’d even join him–even though she was trying to cut down on her carbs. After all, it had been a hard day, and poets had to eat.
~ Melodie Corrigall
Published Oct.10/2015 in Pound of Flesh, February 14.