Jigsaw Jelly
the only hint the
quake had hit
was how the telly
wriggled just a wee
from back to forth
for a few secs with
msnbc on the screen,
an interview of quite
serious import. it
hadn’t seemed like
much but the place
they called home was
replete with pipes
corroded with such
rust that kerblooey!
must have went one
and then the whole
place got very smelly
in the least appetizing
way you might imagine
when the plot goes pop
in such a telling way.
ruth stood up and set
out to deduce the source
of the smelly, thinking
it had to be thattaway.
eve sat still on the cold
hard couch and switched
the channel on the telly
to anderson cooper. enid
seemed not to have noticed
a thing as she continued her
loud and off-key rendition of
lily of the valley in the back
room with the walls of green
(the shade of kelly) adorned
in such a way that one might
surely call shelly (for ruth, it
turns out, had an unruly in
fatuation with mollusks and
would collect them madly
ever since arriving from
new delhi; eve would take
the shelly heaps and pin
each one by one upon
the kelly green walls
in such a juvenile-y
way that one might
think she’d spent her
early years in cellie).
eve had switched
the telly to an episode
of happy days which
almost exclusively
featured fonz, the
fonzerelli. despite
the fact that the
original smelly had
gotten significantly
smellier, ruth was
back, but in the
kitchen making a
sandwich of peanut
butter and grape jelly.
in no time flat enid and
ruth joined eve upon
the cold and hard sofa
to watch the rest of
the sitcom featuring
arthur herbert fonzarelli.
