Thursday, April 8, 2010

Poem A Day: Day Seven

I did write poems yesterday; just didn't post them. We keep losing our Internet connection, so I'll post both of yesterday's poems today and the poem for today later on.

Yesterday's prompt was to write a poem with "Until" in the title. "Until blank."

Here's the first, called Until Three

Until Three

We took the baby in her stroller

To the park where we ate strawberries

and you said you felt strong, felt better,

felt like you didn’t need Doc McNair

anymore.


In that false somnolent summer, I

believed it. Believed that the bitter

days trailed behind us, whispering

like the ashen edge of burning paper,

lifting like lilting smoke to the sky. But

 

they followed us, those timebomb days,

spreading like phantom fingers while I

made dinner, fed the baby, folded clothes,

and you watched CNN for the headline scroll

to let you know the world is not what you

thought it should be.

 

And we were family when we turned

out the light. We curled into cocooning

sheets where the baby and I slept, midnight

Until three.

 

When you woke us and said that

she and I should leave.


And the second:

Until...

Until I'm 16

Until I graduate

After college

After we're married

Until I'm 25 and I can

finally rent a car.

Until the baby's older

Until she starts school

Until we have enough money.

After the divorce

After I'm 30

When I finally have enough

life experience.

Until I'm 35

Until I'm 40

After she graduates

After she's married

Then I'll finally

write the book buried inside me

But until then there's never 

enough time.

Until then...


Thanks for reading!

2 comments:

  1. I really like both of these. You're doing some really good work! :-)

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  2. Hey, there's the risk we speak of, the tightwire of personal pain.

    Your second is fun to read; I love short lined poems because the rhythms fall so quickly. Here it reinforces the sense of breathless business that interferes with the personas objective novel.

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