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Joe
Pivetti's Poetry, Haiku and Poesy: Poem 15 |
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Elizabeth Prune
Elizabeth Prune longed for a moniker
Like Eliza or Lizzy or
Maybe Betty or Beth
But Lizard is what she would get.
Ms. rankled Prune is a recovery agent.
She started with shopping carts,
Worked up to furniture and equipment,
Then autos, pick-ups and model home art.
A cop pulls her over with a car in tow,
He says "the owner's paid what he owes
And wants his car back and no jaw."
She says "Bub, repossession is nine tenths of the law."
Lizard is least prepossessed
With voodoo, lucky charms, hexes,
Seances and tarot sessions
When she's between repossessions.
In the paintings and statue recovery union,
If a broken limb can be glued back on,
A trusted senior member agent
Is allowed short term dismemberment.
Lizard hasn't been able to unload a V-8 repo
That's vibrantly labeled with "General Tsou".
It sits in her folks barn, still stuck in reverse;
Being chicken and fulfilling the Charger's curse.
Lizard's got friends down at the repo company office.
When she runs out of jobs she goes face to face
With Dilly, the ex-dealer, Bronco, the ex-ranger,
And manager Winnie, the ex-sexter of checkers.
Lizard got a job to recover a complete dining room set
Where there was the cutest couple that she'd ever met.
While offering cookies Ma Kettle said "the check's in the mail"
So Lizard said "couch in my truck or you'll be bakin' 'em in jail."
Lizard helped snoop out some re-collectable art,
And Picasso's Musketeer was close to her heart,
Whence she said to a wise guy guardian thug
"Move it bub or I'll make you look just like that mug."
Tights tattered, a legless Lizard
Looked down from a slightly pruned tree to a prized rent-a-dog guard
And said "By heck and highwaters, I'm all a flail!
And out on a limb tryin' to recover this darn Mr. Tails."
Lizard lives in a Mobile home
With a couple of 'Bama dogs
(One's a mix and one's fearsome).
They're named Mutt and Chef Billy-Bob.
Lizard visited her folks next door.
There was squirrel stew for dinner,
Followed by shoo-fly pie, white lightning,
TV wrestling and relative in-fighting.
When helping to fix a door kicked in by a chum
She cast about for a guide but found a jumbled mix.
So she wouldn't sidestep getting it plumb
She pointed around and asked "jamb it even to which?"
[And Lizard smiled at the evocation of Ms. Plum and Janet Evanovich]
Copyright © 2019 by Joe Pivetti