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Pandora Descending: Ashes and Sparks
While Epimetheus
Is preoccupied putting out his brother's fires,
His wife sits vacantly in their little hive
Like a smoke-dazed bee
She's a back lit babe with honey-colored hair
A little clay pot festooned with flowers
A scoop of vanilla ice cream in a gold cup
A one hit wide-eyed wonder
Clara Bow lips dangle
Below "Who Me?" eyes
Breasts pour off her chest like funnel cakes
Her pink tongue, like a sleeping snake,
Nestles around a necklace of pearl white teeth
Ennui is her only companion
Until curiosity undulates in under the door
Like rain to thirsty roots
A tongue to a sore tooth
A naïve moth to flame
Bumbling fingers swarm all over the box
She was warned not to open
A container with more surprises
Than a package from the Unabomber
When she lifts the lid
All the evils that were carefully tucked away like Christmas linen
Pop out like Chinese firecrackers
And scatter about the room like an upended jar of marbles
Trees shiver
Dinners go cold
Flowers lay their sweetened heads against the decaying sand
Wives and husbands stare at chipped
Formica tables and wonder what they've missed
But our prom queen still has one more item in her shopping bag
Finding its way to the top like rising cream
A little Prozac latte
To wash down the mounting dread
Twice a day with a sensible meal
Her constitution's as good as gold
And the eyes of Fate
Are stone-blind again
Lori Romero (Click for bio.)