the thicket out back stretches on for ages
like turning three, then thirty
fifty is around the corner
leaves breathe the scent
and I bathe in it—
the idea of love or something a lot like it
before death—why do people no longer date?
the alyssum of grace blooming from anguish
a Chantilly carpet with no magic ride
living as an expired metro card
even more absurd in the country
an annual as in horticulture (you bloom, you die)
a woman like me shouldn’t hold hope
in her palms, in her heart
white-hot heat, a kiss
she may never plant again
Day 27 of #NaPoWriMo
Today, begin by reading Bernadette Mayer’s poem The Lobelias of Fear. Now write your own poem titled “The of ,” where the first blank is a very particular kind of plant or animal, and the second blank is an abstract noun.
The poem should contain at least one simile that plays on double meanings or otherwise doesn’t quite make “sense,” and describe things or beings from very different times or places as co-existing in the same space.
