April is National Poetry Month, and as part of that, we poets have co-opted the whole Na__WriMo thing from the novelists and declared it to be NaPoWriMo as well. Many of us aim to write (and in some cases, post) one poem each day during this month.

Sources of daily prompts abound, and in the past, I’ve bounced around among several — depending on whose I liked best that day — or have combined three prompts into one Frankenpoem. Or have written three poems each day. No more of that, I said to myself this year. I’m committing to the prompts over at this NaPoWriMo blog, and that’s it. No backsies.

Well.

Today, I’m supposed to write in the manner of Kay Ryan, with tight little lines that contain lots of rhymes and an animal or two, plus maybe a pithy philosophical observation. (That part of this optional prompt is extra optional.) I can try. Here goes:

All Snails Are the Same

Snails wind up
their trails,
all hidden
when you
step out into
the rain
to ride the rails,
the train,
in your
downtown
clothes,
rehearse your
downtown
refrain.
The Quiet Car
is silent as
snails,
no one
telling tales
that might
leave trails
of what ails
and fails,
what remains
of soft entrails
and softer
brains.