I Don’t Mind Waiting
by Lavina Blossom
There is weight in waiting, moving heavy
as a waiter with much on the plate,
charged with delivery to a table
that must, I’m pretty sure, be Plato’s
table, the Ur table, meaning located
nowhere but in my head. And I
am still waiting for my head to clear to set
my offering down, although I turn
away from anyone who might say: there,
leave it there. Because I want my
bountiful mixed platter, all that I can
heft, even as the lettuce wilts, the fruit
shrivels, the bread sticks grow soggy, dust
settles in the soup. I carry on, aware
that leaves are falling, that the trees
will topple too, eventually. Although today
the trees and I hold up the sky, its porcelain
blue. Once it was true that added weight
could give me greater strength and durability.
But those, apparently, were specials,
lately taken off the menu.
PHOTO: Fruit Vendor, Football, Mexico City, by Rod Waddington.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: “I Don’t Mind Waiting” was written to the prompt “waiting,” coincidentally given recently in a Zoom writers group I meet with weekly. The idea of waiting tables came to mind right away. I let the idea of waiting for something to occur while carrying a plate or platter take me where it would.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lavina Blossom is a painter and mixed media artist as well as a poet. Her poems have appeared in various journals, including 3Elements Review, Kansas Quarterly, The Literary Review, The Paris Review, The Innisfree Poetry Journal, Poemeleon, Common Ground Review, and Ekphrastic Review. She is an Editor of Poetry for Inlandia: a Literary Journey. You can find some of her art at DailyPaintworks.
Silver Birch Press 