Retrospective - NaPoWriMo 2021 - 2. Week Two

Retrospective – Week Two

#8

Snow Globe

I press my nose against the frosty windowpane,

Watching the snow swirl around a scene I can’t be part of.

The cold grounds me,

Temporarily relieving the soul-deep uncertainty.

A car leaves gashes in the freshly-fallen powder,

Driving away from here,

Leaving me jealous of their freedom.

The neighbors across the street

Pull into their driveway,

Three generations illuminated by the glowing streetlamp,

Fuzzy with flakes,

Enduring or ignoring the fear together.

The black cat chirps as it weaves around my legs,

Asking for second dinner,

Unfazed by human concerns.

#9

Hypervigilance

The refrigerator harmonizes with traffic and trains.

A new noise joins the fray, the source of which must be found.

It’s the air conditioning units next door,

Not someone lurking outside.

The hum of the sump pump lasts thirty seconds and ends with a thunk.

TV sitcoms cover the sounds… mostly.

It’s time to sleep, but instead of heartbeats slowing,

They accelerate.

Breaths come when the body can’t hold them anymore.

Relaxation comes with valium.

#10

Water cascades down cement blocks,

An unwelcome indoor accessory,

It finds cracks in the concrete patches

Holding the foundation tenuously together.

Jettisoned outside,

its journey is cut short

as it finds the path of least resistance

and gleefully erodes soil and brick

in an endless cycle

until the motor wears out,

flooding the basement

#11

I thought it macabre when my grandma asked

What things we wanted after she died.

To her, the question was practical.

To me, it was unthinkable.

Mom wanted the china cabinet and

The glass with circus animals on it

She and my aunt always squabbled over like toddlers

When it came time to set the dishes out for dinner.

My aunt wanted the dining set with the table

That had extra leaves to expand for company.

I wanted nothing to do with it.

After time and thought, I remembered.

Remembered sitting on the floor

Guessing birds from descriptions my grandpa read to us

From books taken from the desk I sat in front of.

Great Grandpa’s desk he used a lifetime ago,

When he taught equally ravenous minds history.

The red-winged blackbird was my favorite.

“I want Great Grandpa’s desk.”

Stunned looks and silence was my family’s response.

Grandma took an index card out of the desk

And wrote my name on it,

Staking my claim.

It now sits in my downstairs bedroom,

Filled with porcelain horses instead of books.

The index card is still there.

#12

Bunny

Steadfast friend who absorbed tears, hugs, and anger,

Leaving not much fur left on the faded yellow and white fabric.

Scars of contrasting thread stitched up wear and tears with surgical precision

By Doctor Mom.

Floppy ears cover black yarn eyes and a used-to-be pink nose.

The rabbit’s head falls forward on its wobbly neck,

Worn thin from being carried for years in a choke-hold.

It wears an elegant pink dress once worn by the infant who

Outgrew it fifty years ago.

#13

Garden of Dreams

Past, present, and future sit together on a bench,

Next to yellow snapdragons and fragrant lilacs,

And talk about poems and prayers and promises,

What was

What is

What will be

In the next life we choose.

#14

Food is my temple

A sacred preparation

Love and fellowship

Prompts:

8. The suggestion is to write about the sense of being lost—at any age, stage, time of life. Either you are lost or you have lost something.

9. Unprompted

10. Write a poem with broken things in it. You might love them the way they are or feel the need to fix them.

11. Let “things” appear in your poem’s title, or make your poem somehow list or talk about ordinary things we possess, so, as readers, we see them differently and they become new to us.

12. More “things”.

13. Unprompted

14. Let your poem have at its heart a real or metaphoric temple.