Poem: "Pussy Willows and Tiger Lilies"
This poem came out of the February 4, 2014 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by technoshaman. It also fills the "public display of affection" square on my 1-31-14 card for the Origfic Bingo fest. This poem was sponsored by Anthony & Shirley Barrette. It belongs to the series Walking the Beat.
Pussy Willows and Tiger Lilies
Dale and Kelly buy each other
flowers for Valentine's Day,
but not in the usual manner.
Dale gets Kelly a blue t-shirt
on which tiny white kittens
clung to a willow bush.
Kelly gets Dale a white t-shirt
on which fierce tigers
emerged from orange lilies.
They spend the afternoon
at Café Bartlett Square
teaching their friends ASL puns.
Kelly's favorite is signing
"brown" and "knee"
for fudge brownies.
Dale's favorite is signing
"milk" across her eyes
for pasturized milk.
They play a round of PDA bingo
using cards handed out by the café --
a quick game, on Valentine's Day.
Dale wins down the first column
with kissing, hugging, dancing,
holding hands, and giving a gift.
They walk home slowly,
arms over each other's shoulders,
enjoying people's smiles as they go by.
* * *
Notes:
Visual puns rely on interplay between images and words. See some examples.
Here is Kelly's pussy willow shirt. This is Dale's tiger lily shirt.
ASL puns may depend on the visual similarity between two signs, the verbal similarity of English words, a crossover between words and signs, or any combination of those factors.
Café Bartlett Square is a coffeehouse in Jamaica Plain.
Public display of affection refers to romantic behavior where other people can see it. Etiquette varies regarding what is or is not acceptable.
People-watching bingo may be played with an app or paper cards such as this one. There is a bingo card generator if you want to paste in prompts to get a randomized card. If you load the Sex & Romance and Childhood Experiences prompt lists, you could probably edit those down to a good people-watching set.