Elena Composed

Poem 16

Fell behind, not sure if I’ll catch up again. We’ll see. There was a lot of poetry in last night’s The Endgame, so I had to give it a try.

Elena Composed
The black lace symbolizes nothing, purely
aesthetic, cut and measured and curved and sewn
to set off the very shape of me. No one
will see this today, but in this dim mirror
don't I deserve to be irresistible if only
to myself? The black stockings are sensible,
though, warmth, protection, a barrier
against the cold metal chair and searching eyes.
I'm not a modest woman but there are rules,
you know. Skin must be deployed carefully.

The heels? The simple pleasure
of a beautiful thing with the name
of a knife.

Over it all, more black, for today's work
is deathly serious. But I need just a glimmer
more, a hint, gold embroidered up and down
in a long row of exes, like a game I've won
several times. Exes, maybe. Or perhaps
the feathery tops of stalk after stalk
falling for the scythe. Feed them through
the spindle, magic in the proper hands.
Or stacks, carefully balanced, brick
by brick, a solid foundation but hollow
beneath the weight of millions.

Or maybe it's all for the moment you see me
and forget a second just where you are.

Supers

Day 15, poem 15

Halfway through! Today’s prompt was about something you have absolutely no interest in.

Supers
Some kid left his Wolverine in my bed once
and I fished him out of the covers, all sharp
edges and bulging plastic and body hair.

I probably didn't throw him on the floor,
too chronically polite as a child to say
that I didn't give a fuck about Wolverine.

I needed something softer, electric cello
and stylish action dolls with twelve whole points
of articulation and brushable hair!

I needed heroes unafraid to smile, to laugh
at the idiocy of their own corny puns,
to lean against each other for strength

when no powers were enough to fly them home.

Title Sequence

Day 14, poem 14

I am struggling with the titles this year. But here’s my life as a movie.

Title Sequence
Open on this notebook: spiral, short 
and stocky, a platitude in gold 
alternating fonts on the cover.
Inside, polka dots and off-white pages.
A pen, pink, over the paper and it scrawls,
goes back, crosses itself out. Can you even
understand the way the letters lean?
Do the words they form seem hieroglyphic?
It's mostly print with a hint of cursive
to make the pen glide smooth. She holds it wrong:
there's a callus on her ring finger
from decades of scratching.

                                                    Or maybe
open on two girls downtown on a DC summer night,
hair frizzing, fingers linked. Inscrutable. They drift apart
and then together, move as one but keep
the humid air between their hips. On the metro
they hang from the vertical pole, the taller
around the small. In the suburbs, in the backseat
of a parked car, the tall girl rakes her teeth
over the other's bottom lip.

                                                  Or open on an apartment, panning from the window in.
Note the dust, the rows of posed dolls leaning against barely seen books. The floor
cluttered with soggy chew toys made to resemble human food. There's a beagle
in a cup-shaped bed, one ear tossed over the side, soft and greying at the edges.
See the dishes in waiting, the unopened mail, the writing and sewing and making
in every stage of undone. Wait for action. There might be action today. Sometimes
not if it's one of those days.

Totally

Day 13, poem 13

Today’s “everything is going to be amazing” prompt was pretty apt for me at the moment.

Totally
I don't have the answers, the authority,
the audacity to take control. I'm just
two parts competent, half a part confident,
five heaping scoops of imposter syndrome.
There aren't enough lists in the world.
There's not enough daylight. I never wanted
hard, I never asked because so often
I'm drowning in hard of my own creation.
I'm already a month's worth of tired
and picking at the seams for an escape hatch.

World’s Largest

Day 12, poem 12

I went back to the day 12 prompt, which mentioned the World’s Largest Ball of Twine. I did some poking around to look at other World’s Largest Things and I have some questions.

World's Largest
How did it start? Did you look one day
at a standard ball of twine and realize
"I can go bigger"? How many years
can you give to walking circles, always
the same direction until your whole body
lists? Your hands are raw from miles
of rough fibers, your mind is pinned
on a single thought: more. Do you stop?
Do you wind still, protection
against usurpers who see your creation
along the roadside and take up
their twine? Do you wind to see just
how high, long, far your divine mission
can go? Do you think as you circle
and circle about the life
you might have lived in this flat town
with its flat people? Were you flat
once? Did you always need
to climb? Do they think you're crazy
and if they think you're crazy then
who will wind it when you go?

Bivalvia

Day 12, poem 11

I’ve been a little stuck, so I flipped through some random Wikipedia pages until I found something small to write my day 12 poem about. I might try the same for something large for yesterday.

Bivalvia
Say it. It sounds almost filthy, like some hidden place
where I could hide my tongue a while. It sounds almost
lofty, Olympian, the name of some forgotten goddess
of objects ordinary and small. Although find me
a myth that's not filthy, that doesn't require two bodies
compressed into one space, shelled in.

Molluscs have no heads but they have the sense
to dig themselves in deep for safety, to hold on
to something bigger, to survive. Hold on
to every pain, every itch, keep it deep inside
until it comes out lustrous.

Garden

Day 10, poem 10

A few stabs at supervillain love poems.

Garden
1.
I hope you know I'd tear
the whole world down for you. I'd build
you beauty from the ashes. I'm not here
searching for ordinary. I want a love song
laced with poison, possession,
fire to make cautionary tales
for young girls blush.
Let me cover you in garnets.

2.
My eyes have opened a new color
and everything looks different but you,
you are as porcelain and silk
and precise touches of paint as ever.
My vision narrows to a point:
you are sunlight, water, life.

Nonet

Day 9, poem 9

Nonet
A world of magic is a world of
so many new types of hurting.
Tell me another story.
Our hope - buried shrapnel,
scarring from inside,
irritation
unseen. I
cannot
stay.

Alt

Day 8, poem 8

Today’s prompt wasn’t really speaking to me but I did it anyway.

Alt
She walks well in heels and even dances
and my hair envy is major because mine
could never fly so smooth. She wakes
just so. She finishes what she starts,
kisses every girl she wants to kiss.
She only says I'm sorry when she means it.
She isn't some masked marvel.
She shows down to the bone, deep,
open. Her only secrets are inked
into the underbelly of her tongue.

Early Bird

Day 7, poem 7

Today, I’m refuting “The early bird gets the worm” with help from the two beagles who won’t let me sleep.

Early Bird
The ground's still frozen hard when the dogs need out
at five. There's nothing to be gained like this, eyes half-
closed and shoulders hunched. We return empty-handed.
I try catching up, snatching up whispers of sleep
in quarter hour increments, squint-glaring at the sun. 
As for the dogs, they prefer warm afternoons after a rain 
when the pavement goes dry and the worms are stranded, 
cooking slowly.