Unadorned 7/11/97
By Patricia Wellingham-Jones

He looks
across our sandwiches
at my book on
Shaker furniture.

You like things simple,
primitive, he says.

I think of
clean lines,
unadorned bodies,
beautiful grains
in the wood,
texture under
my fingertips
and the satisfying
forms of function.

Simple, I agree,
definitely not
primitive.

His cluttered mind
doesn't see
the difference.

Published in Small Pond, Winter 2000

Patricia Wellingham-Jones is a former psychology researcher/writer/editor/lecturer and two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work has been published in numerous anthologies, journals, and internet magazines including The Tule Review, Phoebe, Visions International, Manzanita Quarterly, Midwest Poetry Review, Nanny Fanny, mélange journal, FZQ. Her latest chapbook is Don’t Turn Away: Poems About Breast Cancer and she recently edited Labyrinth: Poems & Prose. She lives on a creek in rural northern California, USA, with her husband and two cats.