Letter To a Dear Friend

Friday Writings #195: Revisiting Old Favorites

"...for today’s optional prompt, I invite you to revisit one of our old prompts. Maybe one you missed? Or one you could explore again?" 

I have chosen a prompt from 2022, one I'd missed. I have "subverted" the prompt in that the narrator is not a stranger to the person she is writing, but they are both strangers to me, although one's name isn't unknown.

Friday, November 25, 2022

Friday Writings #54: Writing to a Stranger

“...write to a stranger. Not just any stranger, but someone specific you have in mind, whether observed or imagined.”

(Don't forget, you can always subvert a prompt too – by doing the opposite of what it says, or by writing about why you refuse to write to it, or by deliberately misunderstanding it, or by going off at a tangent....)

Georgia, my dearest friend Georgia,

Does it disappoint to know

the public sees you 

as “that woman” who paints

those macabre skulls?

Or their obsession with seeing

genitalia in your flowers,

despite your adamant denials?

How maddening. 

Shall we play along

with their sensual views,

call them “senscapes,”

or perhaps “sinscapes” fits better?

Though I fear your masterpieces

will end up memes of bawdy nature,

spreading like misinformation spewed

by the President. 

“Her Grey Lines with Black, 

Blue and Yellow, delicately open

as genitalia in full bloom,” 

to quote one odious critic.

Can you sue? 

Let’s blame that husband of yours,

promoting your flowers as lurid, erotic!

Dirty old man.

Both adjectives are true!

I promise, I’ll stop harping on his age…

but, really Georgia. 

I’ll let you know,

I much prefer your landscapes.

Back of Marie’s No. 4 for example.

Now, no one could take that one 

for anything but rumpled bed sheets!

All my love,

and I'll see you next month,

L  

©2025 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  

Back of Marie's No.4, by Georgia O'Keeffe, 1931