K is for Karla who drank the wrong brew

K is for Karla who drank the wrong brew
04/14/2008 - National Poetry Month post #16, part of The Unlucky Twenty-Six

Fastidious Karla Delilah DeLeen
kept the house spotlessly, spotlessly clean,
It made her feel calm and sublimely serene
with everything polished a high, glossy sheen.

Her parents and friends thought she might be insane
dusting chandelier chains and each windowpane,
and the cover atop the emergency drain
and the tip of the copper antique weathervane.

She wiped every book in the library's case,
the leaves on each plant, and every clock face,
and hand washed and dried every boot and shoelace,
removed every ash from the old fireplace.

She cleaned under cushions and under each chair
polished each apple, banana, and pear
and picked the lint out of each underwear pair
and saw her reflection in the silverware.

Her parents were not really sure what to do.
They bought her a pet kangaroo from the zoo
and offered a trip to Kalamazoo
and hosted her friends at a big barbecue.

They tuned the TV to the New Zoo Revue
and bought two new oars and a brand new canoe
and a hand-made titanium-nickel kazoo
and promised that she could get a tattoo.

It got to the point where she wouldn't eat lunch
unless they would just bring her something to munch
like some crackers and grapes clustered up in a bunch
and some chips and a big glass of strawberry punch.

But she cleaned so intensely she never let up.
When they brought her the food on which she would sup,
she mumbled her thanks but she never looked up,
and when she got thirsty, she grabbed the wrong cup.

It tasted so bad that she wanted to cry,
and she stopped all her cleaning, and saw with a sigh
that she'd drunk a solution of chlorine and lye,
and she curled in a ball and she lay down to die.

One of my writing goals for 2008 is to write at least one light verse or poem every week in addition to my haiku wednesday and fiction friday posts. I will try to do this on Mondays.