Friday, September 26, 2014

Lucky #4

Maybe we’re walking in the woods, eyes
aimlessly anywhere & she is no more remarkable
than a tree or the fat deerflies
ascribing circles around the hot crown
of her head. Her shoulder a secondary target,
unseasonably bared.

Maybe we’re walking by
a bus shelter downtown & she’s got her head leaned up
against the glass. And the cars going by, puddles
at the curb, tires. A rainy tiredness
on us all.

Or we’ve just come down the stairs, fiddling
with our cuffs, to catch her,
freshly mottled from an unguarded blender full
of good-for-you, our marshy breakfast
everywhere.

Perhaps she’s just a draft of this poem
& her inky face is all there is
to date. We hate to admit it, but her left shoulder
was created
in anger.

* * *

This is where Darryl Joel Berger usually slanders me and my process but this time, all he said was "lucky number 4 – the fourth in a series of writing prompts for the poet Ariel Gordon." 

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