Adele Evershed
Queuing
I am approaching such an age
The age my mother died
And I wonder is it only women
That mark this morbid milestone in their lives
My mother was 52
She loved blackcurrant tart and Judy Garland
(I always thought she looked a bit like the young Judy
—think Dorothy not Easter Parade)
And jumping the queue at the Co-Op
Saying—sorry—I've got cancer
As she pushed to the front
Tomorrow I am 52
So I will stain my teeth with blackcurrants
And sing I'm off to see the Wizard at the top of my healthy lungs
And be grateful to wait
As I stand in line...
Bio
Adele Evershed was born in Wales and has lived in Hong Kong and Singapore before settling in Connecticut. Her prose and poetry have been published in over eighty online journals and print anthologies such as Every Day Fiction, Free Flash Fiction, Ab Terra Flash Fiction, Grey Sparrow Journal, High Shelf, Tofu Ink Arts Press, The Fib Review, Wales Haiku Journal, Shot Glass Journal, and Hole in the Head Review. Adele has recently been shortlisted for the Pushcart Prize for poetry, the Staunch Prize for flash fiction, and her novellain-flash, A History of Hand Thrown Walls was shortlisted in Reflex Press Novella Contest.