Jell-O Molds

She comes at me as if in plain sight

As though I don’t see how she struggles to mask her ugly disguise

Ring ring

Cell phone harkens back to olden times

When ladies sat on front porches and gossiped over sweet tea

Making matches and destroying old ones

Deconstructing and reconstructing the societies within their power

It was the courtroom of the miserable, misguided woman whose brain was left to shrivel in the desert of laundry and diapers, casseroles and cocktail parties

Of standing by your man instead of standing up to him

Of settling instead of searching

And so she called

This modern-day front porch lady

Pricking my ear with nonsense

Attempting to pierce her way through

I almost felt sorry for her and sent her flying back to the porch from which she came

But instead I let her live inside her head made of Jell-O molds and Tupperware

And I marched on…

To a brighter day