seven together

Today I am posting seven poems from the Poem A Day Challenge. One would think it wouldn't take too much of an effort to post one each day, but somehow that doesn't seem to be happening. I have no explanation. Anyway, here are seven poems in reverse order. I should note that I did cheat on one day: April 16th's poem is an old one.


April 20: a love poem

I refuse to write
a capital L love poem;
it's just not in me.


April 19: a memory about me that I don’t remember

They tell me I used to have a dog
a black and white cocker spaniel mix
although I don't remember.
I do remember the doghouse
and the way it closed around me
when I went inside, the hair on the blanket
and the dusty smell of canine fur.
But the dog? I neither remember
the dog nor his disappearance
though I'm told he was killed
by ground glass fed to him by a burglar.


April 18: use the line,
“There is no connection”

No Connection

But for the weekly calls
on Sunday mornings
there is no connection
between this generation
and the last
and this connection
is barely enough to satisfy
the mother’s knowing
that it is the daughter’s role
to make the call, and
the daughter’s knowing
that her mother time
will be the same.


April 17: poem in third person

Immigrant

She comes to America
a debt paid to her brother’s friend
lands at Ellis Island
crosses gates and turnstiles
rides the train three thousand miles
to California to marry.
She spends the next twenty years
bringing twelve siblings
across the ocean
one by one.


April 16: poem with a surprise ending

Noelle

It is because I think I am invincible,
impervious to the mundane
trials that overtake the ordinary,
because I declare in late night musings,
wined and incensed, that I am able
to direct every note,

that I am humbled by the sudden
realization that even I can be
overpowered by random whims of
the sarcoma god, who makes its plan
to kidnap my companion.

She comforts me, as the dying will,
with strict obedience to daily ritual:
her lazy stretch in the first triangle
of morning sun on the carpet,
under the wooden rocker.


April 15: an insult poem or a poem about taxes

In 2005

Dick Cheney’s taxes
came in at a rate of
five and seven tenths percent,
after his bill was lowered by
one million
ninety-three thousand
nine-hundred thirty seven
dollars.

So?

Gotta love those tax cuts.


April 14: how (something) behaves

How the Trees Behave

They are my coccoon, my cave
in the mountains, my shade,
my dark and light.
They swing wildly in windstorms
drop pine needles on the roof
remind me with their whistlings
that they are almost human,
almost family. Almost.
In summer they’re the coolness
in my eyes and on my bare arms;
in winter their branches
catch snowflakes one by one,
until they are draped in white
like first communion dresses
or wedding cake frosting.