Vox Populi
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Louise Hawes: My muse at seventy-something
"Diaphanous!?" My muse spits the word out, as though it's a bony cuttlefish. "I don't do diaphanous!" When she's not shooting hoops, my muse wears cargo pants with so many pockets we both forget where she's put those inspired ideas, all our lost tickets to ride. She hunts them with frantic pat-downs: chest, waist, both hips, each thigh. My muse is so tall I have to shade my eyes to find her scowl. Like I did at the agency, where we spent our days thinking outside boxes and running stuff up the flagpole. I salute, then study her face, flushed and dimpled, to my washed out and cold. My muse claims she was born with a caul. Me? I'm an incubator baby, playing it safe, revising as I go, perfection my drug of choice. My muse favors swear words and free writes, sex scenes with the woman on top, breasts and prolapses dangling in hot, cruel light. My muse is fast; her legs, long, relentless, churn like propellers. She seldom stops to explain where we're going. "Showing up," she barks at me, "is 98 percent of the game." So I follow, grim, puffing out a faint morse code: help needed, battery drained. Sometimes, when my distress registers, and my limitations startle her peripheral vision, my muse adjusts her garland and comes to a reluctant halt. It's time for some hope, a goal: "Chill out," she says, patting my head. "Just think of this as cross-training for the soul."
Copyright 2022 Louise Hawes
Louise Hawes is the author of two short fiction collections and over a dozen novels. The Language of Stars, a mixed-format novel inspired by research into the life and work of Robert Frost, includes prose, playscripts, and poetry. Louise helped found and teaches at, the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program.
Vox Populi 
Oh Louise! You are splendid!
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Thank you! This was pure fun to write!
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Thanks so much! I hope we can all meet here in a few decades to hear from our Centenarian Muses! 😎
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Thanks, Laura. Let’s all meet here in a few decades to hear from our “Centenarian Muses.” 😎
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I love it when I read a poem and can selfishly reply. Me! Me! You’ve found me! Over here! This is wonderful
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Hahahaha
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Thanks, Barbara. I love that poem-worthy tree you’re hugging!
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I hope that tree still stands. That was before a major fire in that area😥
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Oh, I hope so, too! It looks like a very large, very old Scots Pine?
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I’m guessing a Jefferson. In mountains near San Diego
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Love this. Made me smile!
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Thanks, Rose Mary!
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Thanks, Rose Mary. Mission accomplished! 🙂
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Such fun to read — and so true (I’m 79 after all!)
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