Monthly Archives: April 2015

Bury the Baby Under the Yew Tree: PAD Chapbook Challenge, Day 30 (!)

There’s no use now in crying.
He’ll be wanting his dinner,
and there are a great many things
to see to, since you’ve been
lying-in and taken ill. Your sewing,
for example, or a new quilt, now that
you’ve gone and used the old one
to wrap the poor little dead thing.
It never stood a chance, you know:
Sometimes nature takes care of
such problems, carries out
God’s will. In time, it will seem
a kindness. To think of it, though —
using your wedding quilt like this,
which we all spent so many long hours
piecing. I call that selfish, and I
don’t mind saying so. Well. Be that
as it may. Dash some cold water
on your face now, and do
that which must be done.

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It Isn’t and Doesn’t Sing to Itself: NaPoWriMo 2015, Day 30 (!)

No longer on the table,
no longer exterior to you —
it’s no longer here.

Bad decisions, but
not the least nor
the best of its kind

to get around the city,
nor a convenient means
to anyone’s best friend

nor to you. It isn’t
and doesn’t sing to itself.
It isn’t made of glass.

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The Jar: April 2015 PAD Chapbook Challenge, Day 29

No one knows
how long that jar had been there
collecting pennies and
singing to itself.

No one saw it
get up and dance,
but it was obvious
that it danced

in the gray, dewy hours
when no one was awake,
not even the parking garage attendant
or the guy hosing off the sidewalk

outside the place that sold
lottery tickets and outmoded cell phones.
No one could remember
what the jar sang,

no one recalled its tune,
after it got up and left one morning,
taking with it all the pennies, songs, and dances
it could contain.

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2.5 Stars — Not the Best, Not the Worst: NaPoWriMo 2015, Day 29

I was initially excited to come to this
office chair, because my friend was all like,
“OMG, it’s sooooo comfortable, and you can
adjust it up and down.” But OK, first of all,
it was a mauve-and-black “Saved by the Bell”
kind of print. Just, gross. Also, I tried to get
someone to help me with the up-and-down
feature, but there didn’t seem to be
anyone working there. So I had to find it
myself, kind of under the seat, and then
it’s not like it was some kind of thrill ride.
Whatever. That was fine. It was all fine —
it swiveled and rolled like you’d expect —
it’s just that, for the time it took me
to get there, I was hoping for
something more like Six Flags
or like a lounge chair by the pool.
This was not that. So I stayed
a few hours, and then I left.

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Instars: April 2015 PAD Chapbook Challenge, Day 28

The balls of frass
are larger now,
a simple matter of
more leaves in,
more leaves out.
Filaments waggle,
feet undulate,
a puzzlement of
parts that won’t
be needed just
a few days from
now. Now is
almost constant
chewing, with
pauses to split
the skin, and
then to grab,
desperately,
another leaf.
So many view
metamorphosis
as a miracle—
how surprising,
then, that it
comes down to
this chewing,
this effort,
this poop.

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My Mother, Approaching the Bridge: NaPoWriMo 2015, Day 28

Over the Mad River, maybe,
or the Miami, whichever
was between our house
and my volunteer job
at a nature center.

A certain bend of
green-brown water,
a certain terror

she couldn’t explain
and I couldn’t understand.
A pause, several deep breaths.
It’s possible, too, that she
talked herself through it:
Come on, Rosemary.

It’s possible, but I can’t ask her
about this or any other moment,
about this or anything else.
There are no more bridges
for us to cross

together.

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Perfect: April 2015 PAD Chapbook Challenge, Day 27

Looking back on it now,
I wonder if those fat rainbow shoelaces
were the best gift I ever received,
arriving as they did unbidden
from an Easter Bunny I didn’t even
believe in anymore. Bless my mother for
stockings and baskets for nonbelievers,
admission of magic after fairy time was done,
fat rainbow shoelaces for 10-year-old girls
in the ‘80s. Perfect. Just perfect.

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Social Dancing: NaPoWriMo 2015, Day 27

Do
you remember
waltzing in gym,

or
square dancing
to a record,

or
the basic,
plain box step,

forward
and back,
left and right?

Were
your palms
sweaty like mine?

Did
you look
at your possibilities,

shifting
and waiting
to be chosen?

(Did
you wait
to be chosen?)

However
it happened,
did your stomach

flip
as you
and your partner

found
your spot
on the floor?

As
you took
your first steps,

did
you wonder
if this was

the
start of
something entirely new?

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