Today's prompts:
WBP: Write an "emotion" poem (with the emotion as the title.)
NPWM: "What are you haunted by, or what haunts you? Write a poem responding to this question. Then change the word haunt to hunt."
PSH: "Write a poem that provides an unbearably in-depth description of an everyday task, such as getting out of bed, brushing your teeth, or tying your shoes. How much meaning can you mine by really considering an activity you normally take for granted? What will you learn? Where will the poem lead?" (Robert Wynne)
And here is my response to all three. (I took the second peompt to mean: Replace the word "haunt" with "hunt.")
Dread
At 10:30 every evening I take a pill.
It's oval and pink and too big for me
to swallow, so I break it in half.
I take it with a glass of cold water
or ice tea. Sometimes it sticks
in my gullet and I have to
gulp down some extra liquid.
Since I must take it with food,
I have a snack - some pretzels,
half a bagel, or cheese and crackers.
Usually I do it while watching TV.
I've been doing it for almost three years.
It fends off that which has hunted me—
that tumor growing on the outside
of my intestine that they only caught
while looking for something else.
It seems they got it just in time,
cut it out without too much trouble
and sewed me back up whole inside.
But cancer is like a snake, a friend told me.
It can always come back and sneak up behind you.
The pill is my best shot to prevent that snake
from coiling around me again.
Instead of being hunted, I become
the hunter, with my doctor’s help,
scanning the body for trouble spots,
monitoring the blood, being vigilant.
I’ve cheated death a few other times—
heart attack, near-electrocution,
missing a deadly car accident by inches.
I’ve been lucky, so I try to be optimistic,
yet I can’t help but let an element of dread
creep in when my guard is down,
when the snake hunts me in my dreams.
At 10:30 every evening I take a pill.
It's oval and pink and too big for me
to swallow, so I break it in half.
I take it with a glass of cold water
or ice tea. Sometimes it sticks
in my gullet and I have to
gulp down some extra liquid.
Since I must take it with food,
I have a snack - some pretzels,
half a bagel, or cheese and crackers.
Usually I do it while watching TV.
I've been doing it for almost three years.
It fends off that which has hunted me—
that tumor growing on the outside
of my intestine that they only caught
while looking for something else.
It seems they got it just in time,
cut it out without too much trouble
and sewed me back up whole inside.
But cancer is like a snake, a friend told me.
It can always come back and sneak up behind you.
The pill is my best shot to prevent that snake
from coiling around me again.
Instead of being hunted, I become
the hunter, with my doctor’s help,
scanning the body for trouble spots,
monitoring the blood, being vigilant.
I’ve cheated death a few other times—
heart attack, near-electrocution,
missing a deadly car accident by inches.
I’ve been lucky, so I try to be optimistic,
yet I can’t help but let an element of dread
creep in when my guard is down,
when the snake hunts me in my dreams.
No comments:
Post a Comment