Day Fifty-seven

Today's words:

Duck

Mustard

Tea bag

Taxi

Plaster

Pebble

Dinner was a failure: duck

In a mustard

Sauce. Afterwards, I sat dunking my tea bag

As I contemplated taking a taxi

Home. That yummy sauce had congealed into plaster

And I felt like I had a pebble

In my throat. A pebble,

Or maybe a bone from the duck, 

Or just the plaster

Of that sauce. I'll take a mustard-

Yellow taxi

Home and break out another tea bag.

I tossed the used tea bag

In the trash and threw a pebble

At the retreating taxi.

The next time I make duck

With mustard

Sauce it won't turn to plaster.

I think it was too much flour in the sauce that turned it to plaster.

And maybe I'll soak a tea bag

With the mustard

Before whisking it all together. And only a pebble

Of flour. The duck

Itself had been fine. I stared out the taxi

Window. We arrived and I paid the taxi

Driver. As soon as I got in the house, a chunk of plaster

Fell from the ceiling. I didn't even have time to duck.

It wasn't much bigger than a tea bag

Or a large pebble

And it was the color of mustard

At the edges. Not the same mustard

As the taxi

But a brownish one. I picked up the pebble

Of plaster

And got out a tea bag

As I planned my next attempt at duck

With mustard sauce, to avoid it turning to plaster.

I'll call a taxi once I've steeped my tea bag

And put a pebble in my pocket to remind me about the duck.