July 30, 2024
NOTE: This week’s poem is not a 10-liner because…well, because one thing some of you might not know about me is that I write poems longer than 10 lines. (Imagine!) This poem, “checkerboard,” is an experiment in fictional poetry i.e. a poem in which I take on the voice and narrative of someone who’s not (exactly) me. What jumpstarted this piece was a prompt I’d sent out to a local group of writers I belong to here in midcoast Maine. I shared a collection of paint-chip colors I found on the Valspar website, and decided to see if I could use the names of the colors as a way of creating a new poem. This is what came out.
checkerboard
At the wedding, the DJ played “Jolene”
ironically and we danced in muddy heels yelling
“More cowbell!” as our lavish green corsages shed
sprigs of baby’s breath and white rose.
The sky was pale satin peach, the light
deepening so slowly in July. Everything felt semi-
precious—the ceremony when the mic cut out, the baby
who started wailing as the violinist stood to play,
the over-grilled steak and cold coffee. We were certain
our best days were ahead, nectared with potential,
and we swung our hips like broncos shrugging off
their riders in the rodeo dust.
It was only after the tent came down that we
began to understand the tender shell of the other,
and how time would run from us like canyon rapids.
Our vacation tans would fade before the plane
left the tarmac. We would lose patience, friends, hair.
There would be thin-sheeted hospital beds and IV bags
dangling like tired udders. All of that was ahead, too.
But first, the clots of dirt we spun on the checkerboard
parquet, the lawn aerated by a careless joy we’d memorialize
in a scrapbook bearing a stained dinner menu and three-quarters
of a boutonniere. “Remember when…” we’d ask, turning
sideways in bed on each anniversary, herding some stray
souvenir back, holding it between our teeth.
We know, now, we are no seafarers, just tourists wobbling
in a rental kayak toward a cloudy sunset. We lean hard
on our oars when the wind kicks up. There’s water
coming in. There’s no stopping that.
But not enough to sink.