One’s Self – En Masse

Upside-down, warped butter crust resting on the speckled-like-a-robin’s-egg-if-it-weren’t-neutral brown counter-top, you lie there, golden soldiers or yellow-brick road tiles, not sure which, nearly perfect symmetry, all in a row, except for one wounded warrior who rose and rested too close to the flame of the oven, with a lightly bruised and burned shoulder, but all else the same as the rest, yet it is what makes you stand out from the rest, catching my eye, wondering if I see mold, no, it’s not mold, just an injury that makes you the slice I leave behind when I make turkey sandwiches for our Thursday lunch, in hopes that you will be, instead, singled out for a solitary honor, like toast or better yet, a crustless straw hat where that ugly  birthmark can be shaved off – it’s painless, I promise – and you will be glorious like the others, no, more so, because they shall continue to be all lined up, yellow-gold, bland, white bread squares, one sandwich like any other, and you alone shall be the Marilyn Monroe with that beauty mark, or I could just turn the loaf over, set it up-right, hiding your shame, pretending I see only the tops, each one perfectly Orwellian like the others, wonderful rectangle of tan, lines demarking the individuality that would spill out like dominoes if I slid the plastic wrapper off with the flourish of a magician all at once, showing off your nakedness, breaking down the barriers of the loaf into its geometric components.

dragonflies hatching

rise from the lake to follow

their own curved road to Oz

© Jilly’s  All Rights Reserved

qbit is our guest-host at dVerse this week for Haibun.

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