"Indian Winter" by Linda Kunhardt

               Indian Winter

        Why does Mama wear

Indira’s red and green earrings?

        A jinx is the inverse

            of Jewish artichoke;

        kinship is the transverse

            of no opinion coke.

        Flambé is the reverse

            of Papa’s poker chips;

        touché to the universe

            of acquiescent lips.

        For the same reason she wears

 silent Nehru jacket, holy Nehru jacket.

Source of the text – Poetry, December 2011, p. 229.

Bourguignomicon: This verse-collage toys with style & substance; we get consonance-activated couplets bracketed in a Christmas-y question-and-almost-answer.