This poem is trying to be too many things...

Tori's Reef -OR- Diving

What drew me to [Los Angeles] is that I'm not completely at ease there...

-Sara Bareilles-

Without this photograph, the motionless blown-glass

blue of the Caribbean would ripple off the matte

finish of my fogged up 4x6 framed reminder (depth:

40 feet below, give or take) of the way it felt to hold

my breath, your hand, my fear under

weightless water.  What I didn't know:

that the unpredictable stares you baldly 

in the face, like the sudden movement

of crabs distinguished from the freckled

smoothness of rock and sand and sea when

you realize quiet, bubbles, breath, now only feel

real in deep waters.  

this. poem. sucks.

She kept a Campbell’s soup can filled
with stones on the shelf behind
the picture frame. Her junior
high smile, post-braces, thick
eyebrows. The stones held up
the weight of the frame, white
and wooden. Three women
with the same eyes, same
smile, same hairline, heads tilted
in the same left
direction. Sometimes she thinks
without this photo
she would forget the woman
on the right ever existed.

Untitled No. 2 (I've been having trouble with titles lately...)

Sometimes, startled by dusk, she would
creep slowly down the splintered stairs,
to the clammy, dusty floor of the basement.

Reaching beneath the workbench,
her hand would emerge with a flathead, thin enough
to pry the paneling loose from the far wall.

The space was dark and cold, smelling
like a dried out riverbed. Large enough for her hand
to fit in and place, replace, and remove.

She kept her memories there, tended them when
the rest of the house slept: a photograph
of the dead family dog, Rosey; blueprints

of a tree house; a Campbell’s soup can, filled
with stones; a lock of her best friends hair; the receipt
from breakfast with her father, the day before he died.



(Unsure about the ending... unsure about this in general... oh well.)

Awake Before Dawn

Just breaking the surface tension, sensing

history waiting to spill over the edges

of morning, she paused, spoon in hand,

as a globe of rouge peeked just over

the rough ridges of the May garden, untended

since September.  Leaving her earthen brown

bowl half full on the counter, she tiptoed 

through the kitchen, as if someone in the empty

house could hear her, and out the windowed

back door.  Strangely surprised by the dew 

normally gone by the time she rose on the average

day, she stood still while the toes of her bare feet

grew cold in the stiff grass.  It wasn't that

she hated to see the stars go, but that daylight

sometimes startled her after the smooth dusk

of evening, after the subtle notes played by the 

waves as she drifted to sleep.  

Tension

When the water was up around their necks, they turned
away from each other. Sand puckered
up and over the sides of his feet, his
hands stroking the surface of the water
as he bobbed slowly. White foam waves slapped
her cheeks and chin while she reached
tip-toe and started to swim
lazily, further from shore. He stole
sideways glances at her tangled,
wet hair, weaving across the water. Her
legs enjoyed the resistance, barely
running while her arms floated upward,
just breaking the surface tension, sensing his
eyes warming the back of her head
as it slid under. He never moved.

Poem numero Uno

Untitled (for now)

We watched as our Frankenstein’s
Climbed the cliffs by your summer home.
It is a sheer drop down to the ice water
Of Lake Ontario. Last February three men
Died while walking out on the shelf, but your
Monster thought it would be fun, and mine
Always tags along. We laughed

As their stiff, clumsy hands dragged
Knuckle-first through the red clay, searching
For a foothold, or a jutting rock, for leverage.
My Frankenstein chanced a glance up, one eye
Lolling around, trying to find traction, the other
Pouring over the cold sweat on my forehead.

They continued down the rocky face, yours
Missing a step three times, and each time we
Drew in sharp breaths of frigid air and held
Them inside, anxiously attempting
To freeze time. When they landed

At the shoreline, our Frankenstein’s undressed
One another, folding their tattered rags, and placing
Them on Moon-lit rocks, where they would be found
The next afternoon. Even from eighty feet up
I sighed at the sight of my Monster’s scars, train tracks
Running around his left shoulder, the incision
Across his lower abdomen where I planted a pancreas,
The charred stain on his skin just under his right ear
Where electricity caused life to return.

Slowly, our Monster’s began to walk, hand in hand,
Into the dark waters of Lake Ontario, never flinching
From the shock of freezing temperatures, pushing
Ice floes away with their free hands. We watched their skin
Contract, pull the stitches loose from their most recent injuries.
When the water was up around their necks, they turned
Once more to us, and silently
Said goodbye.

The Beginning

This is how it's going to work:

I will post the first poem (because I like going first, I HAVE a poem I just wrote and want to share, and well, I started this. I might as well be the first to suffer the consequences!).

Once I have posted, the next person has a MAXIMUM of three days (I feel this is being generous ;)) to post a poem of their own. That persons poem will use the third to last line of the previous persons poem as their prompt and the first line of their poem. Once that person has posted, the next person does the same. Then it's back to me. We'll go in a circular fashion like so.

Since there are three of us, I'll let you two argue about who gets to go next :)

A comment on comments: Use the "comment"s feature under a posting to comment on a specific poem. We all love feedback! Let's feed back to each other! This is how we'll grow as writers, and one day rule the world!

I love you both (well, one more than the other ;))
Maybe one day we'll invite more people in... but for now, let's see how this works!