Day Seventy-four

Today's words:
Tea pot
Ferry
Parent
Cabbage
Tail
Prophet

The tea pot
Was nearly empty. Time to leave to catch the ferry.
I felt like an anxious parent,
Trying to persuade a child to eat cabbage
At dinner. I guess it's a story of the tail
Wagging the dog, or a false prophet,

Predicting disaster. Like that prophet,
No-one listens to me. I put away the tea pot
And tucked in the tail
Of my shirt as I got ready to leave for the ferry.
Tonight I'm making stuffed cabbage
For my surviving parent,

My mother. My dad died when I was a baby; Mom is the only parent
I've ever known, really. She's always been a prophet, 
Forecasting my life and teaching me to cook cabbage.
We'll sit at the kitchen table around the tea pot
And chat when she arrives, after taking the ferry
To where I live now, at the tail

End of the line. But I'm getting ahead of myself, telling the tail
End of the story first. I'm nervous about cooking for my parent, 
And about her taking the ferry
By herself. I can be a prophet
Too; I'll wager that our tea pot
Chat will revolve around how I'm cooking the cabbage.

Mine probably won't turn out exactly like her cabbage,
And I hope she'll like it. The cat winds its tail
Around my leg, trying to keep me home, near the tea pot.
I have no human children; I'm a cat parent.
I sometimes think my cat is a prophet;
It knows exactly what I'm going to do, but now I'm off to the ferry.

I arrived just in time. I'd hate to have missed it - the ferry
Only runs once an hour. I hope I'll find some good cabbage
At the market. I'm no prophet
About the market. On the deck I look at the sky, where a mare's tail
Cloud seems to be leading the boat, like a parent
Leads a child across a street. Perhaps I'll buy a new tea pot

As well. Afterwards, I took the ferry back to the tail
End of the line, ready to cook the cabbage for my parent,
And prepared for the words of the prophet around the new tea pot.