ManicDDaily

I was honored to be asked to host the “Poetics” prompt at dVerse Poets Pub today.  (Thanks to Sheila Moore, Claudia Schoenfeld, and Brian Miller.)

My prompt has to do with “undercurrents” in poetry.  The examination of the layers of a moment or experience is frankly something most poets do unprompted.  Nonetheless, I look forward to seeing what the wonderful poets at dVerse will do today, and urge you  to check out the prompt and the poets as well.   (And, of course, to write your own poem!)

Here’s mine:

Divorce a Possibility in Brooklyn, NYC

She wipes the counters for weeks
with an increasingly moldy
sponge.  Paper goods
have always been his job, the
disposables,
so for a while when she shops,
she just forgets, grocery store a blur
anyway, baby tied to her chest
like an amulet
against the leering heights
of canned corn, the precarious stacks
of tomato, all those old Italian ladies
in black coats (no matter the season),
the traffic
of criss-crossed carts. 

Till at last, gridlocked in
an aisle she’d intended to sidestep,
she’s faced
by the cellophane muscles
of a man who promises
to pick up everything.  She starts
to reach out to him–his
brand, his wrapper–but feels
suddenly certain
that if she even
touches those paper towels, it will be the end
of the life she has planned.  

She looks down
into her cart; its dull
metal grid reminds her now
of a cage, a poor
cage made of wire and gap,
perfect for some animal
that’s neither strong
nor clever.