30/30

PAD 2021 – Day 12

/ mannixk / 2 Comments

A klutzy accident and unexpected trip to one of my most anxiety-inducing destinations today — the hospital ER — served as inspiration for today’s poems. I tried to incorporate the 30/30 prompt calling for an “anticipation” poem, and the League of Canadian Poets prompt asking for connected haiku.

hospital thoughts

is the opposite
of anticipation,
anxiety?
 
hum of the air vent
its whirring does not drown out
my pounding pulse

nurse asks for pain scale
but there is no number
for stress

we screen fevers
not people, says the nurse
bring purse to x-ray

rolling stool
worn at the edges
like this nurse

exam 1
tired woman says to daughter
it will be ok
Crutch Shadows, photo by Me

PAD 2021 – Day 11

/ mannixk / 1 Comment

Working from two prompts today: the Writer’s Digest challenge to write a poem including a prime number, and the vague but interesting 30/30 prompt, “tomorrow today.” Apologies for sappiness, but that’s the way I get about my kids. 

At Eleven

Our heads are together and I can smell
citrus shampoo in her still-damp hair,
toothpaste on her breath when she tells me
I’m worried about growing up. I know it’s not 
so-much the body she inhabits, the lengthening limbs
and widening nose, that brings on this 
mental weight, but the bigger world.
The thing I have no explanation for.
The thing I too feel the press of, and understand
that at eleven, she can already sense the
goodness of childhood sullying,
the way a frenzy of expanding bubbles
start to pop and fade the minute the water
stops. Inevitable slide into something new,
that will contain so much greatness, yes,
but also expose harsher truths. Tomorrow things, 
seen without sheen or shadow disguise.
I cannot admit
that I too worry about her growing up,
not because I lack faith in her, but because I
know it’s harder to walk once you notice 
what you’re carrying. And I want to shoulder it for her
as long as I possibly can.