Jessica
Poem Starting with a Line from Norman Dubie
My favorite pastime has become
the imaginary destruction of flowers.
I conjure bouquets - lilies
or amaranth, tea roses dotted
with sprays of baby breath
like flakes of dandruff – and I see them
exploding in bursts of petals
and flame. As we talk, calmly, I am
linking daisies in chains just to snap
their green stems. I am blowing
dandelions, not to spread their spores,
but to strip them bare. I play
he loves me, he loves me not
in my mind, squeezing the juice
out of the decisions. I will not wait
for them to wither; I have no patience
for the inevitable. I prefer to pull
and tear. Say what you want,
at least I’m good
at breaking everything beautiful.
***
13 poems down, 17 poems to go.
(8 on prompt, 5 off prompt).
I am pretty straight forward on this one. I took Sarah J. Sloat’s prompt as literally as possible. She offered us 11 options for first lines, using Norman Dubie’s words. I chose number 5 (from “The Mercy Seat”, I think) and I wrote a poem on the bus ride home.
Yep, that’s pretty much it.
