Yesterday's prompt was to take a line from a poet and write its opposite and work from that. I, however, rereading Ruth Stone's Curtains decided I liked the format too much and simply wanted to stick with it in all of its form.
On a happy, happy note: The WooleyJohnsonSealeys were plane bumped with Easter travel at the same time that Chitunga was bumped too on the way back to Iowa. Somehow they ran into each other at Laguardia exiting and entering terminals as flights were rearranged and travel adjusted. the photo they sent brought joy on a gray, cold Syracuse day.
And with that, I need to pack up the car.
Curtains
b.r.crandall
Washing the Pepto Bismol drapes,
dust dinosaurs invade corners
as if it is July in the humidity of Syracuse
when my sisters still lived at home
&, on a lucky night, we’d get corn fritters.
How would this poem be written 20 years from now?
It’s Sunday Morning
& shit, I blew a circuit
overheating a dryer with Dad’s sneakers.
because Mom screamed,
“He’s invading my living room
with his dirty-ass shoes.”
She looked around at her own clutter
and had to laugh.
It’s easy to channel Cynde,
frustrated, but calm with her ability to care,
and I remember our Grandma Vera,
& Sherburne molasses slab cookies.
“Well, I’m going to bed,” he tells us.
His departure was prepared an hour ago.
I already turned his t.v. on so there will be
no knocking things over….
no excuse for maternal cussing. Christ.
It’s Easter, and none of us know any more.
I want to walk Cherry Heights, again
imagining what we’d be like as adults,
when CNS girls would flash their bras
at my buddies and me, Labatt’s Blue
bottles lying in the field.
At least their curtains are washed, right?
