10 Minute Prompt: Write about the "who" that your love can ignite (write-a-thon edition)

The Gardener’s Girl

Your rough hands softened on knots of pulled ivy
Your face the shade of a freshly unwrapped
horse-chestnut, those
Flirtatious crinkles near your nose
smile when you look up from your task,
Sunrise in the corner of your eyes.
Your ear nudges your hair aside
to get a better look at me.
You stare me in the face while I
try to be earnest
I watch your chest rise and stop.
You are waiting for the words
you want to hear.
You lick your lips and the sun dances
on the tip of your tongue.
You are the patience of February
waiting for April.
Your hands stay busy
cutting and plucking ivy
but every nerve is a well-tuned string
to be plucked, a song to be played
waiting, wanting to be touched.

10 Minute Prompt: Write about your "only real" (write-a-thon edition)

Real is the breath I take
the eye that blinks
the itch on the back of my hand
the song of the robin on a wire at dusk
the ripple on a still evening pond
the rustling and jostling murder of crows
in the tree murmuring excuse me
as they settle in for sleep
warm dry air brushes my cheek
as it heads into night
excited for the change
watches the world roll over and snore
warm dry air holds its breath
to see who flinches, who cries out
against the coming night
against what’s next
warm dry air anticipates
delights, enjoys the slow walk home
in buzzing night
the closing door
the turned off lights
creak of springs
repose

10 Minute Prompt: A Simple Obsession (write-a-thon edition)

One Kiss

Those lips, smiling, wrapped around
A laugh at life,
Those lips making words that sound like a language
Unspoken for three thousands years
Those lips lightly casting sibilance to the wind
Those lips moving against each other the way I wish
Those lips would move against me
Those lips glistening after the lip gloss
Brush is put away
Those lips must taste better than ripe cherries
Fresh strawberries, slick slices of mango
Those lips hold a pose to make a point
Those lips say my name and I snap to attention
Those lips are licked with anticipation
Wet with liquor, the corner of your mouth,
a drop that needs catching.

10 Minute Prompt: Cat You Know Well (write-a-thon edition)

Propped up, spreading furry between the top of the cushion and the arm rest
Elliot's sleepy long blinks make siesta eyes.
As I walk past, brisk task intent
Elliot's paw casually lifts and perfectly snags
My clothes or my skin
A red line emerges like lemon juice on onion paper
An angry exclamation on my arm

Elliot rolls in the morning. He rolls on the bed
to make way for a stroking sleepy hand
that rubs his belly, buried in fur so soft
it feels like powder

He rolls on my body and settles upside down
in the crook of my arm
for another round of sleeping in

He rolls on the carpet stretching front legs
over his head, and back legs
away like a leaping gazelle.

I have never resisted this temptation of belly
and scratching, rubbing, rewarded
with a squeek at the end of the stretch.

Elliot asks for a lot, loudly, often, from a distance.
When I'm sitting he enforces unlimited lap access.
He tells me about his day when I've been away
He yells at me for leaving him alone
He orders me to never do it again
He asks me every morning as I'm getting out of the shower
if I really have to go to work.
"I have to pay for your roof, and your food,"
And he walks away.

The Stepmother's Story (super rough draft, write-a-thon edition)

Bright morning sun, softened by sheers shifting gently in the breeze, played on the floor at Cilla's feet. As she smoothed down the flounces with the flat of her hands Cilla's brows knitted, she muttered "This dress makes me look so wide. When did I get so wide?" Stepping back she took the full length into view. Her face flushed at the thought of what this day held for her. "Pish! There's no reason to act like a June bride." She fanned her face and picked up her short train and walked out of the cloak closet that was doubling as her dressing room. There was no one to give her away. She had arrived at the registrar's by coach. She had called ahead to make sure they would have a room for her dress in. Taking one last deep breath, squaring her shoulders, Cilla opened the door that separated the foyer from the registrar's office and stepped through. The registrar's wife, smiling through rheumy eyes, met her with a pat on the arm. A moment later two rough-looking men in what must have been their finest cambric and corduroy came through the door, pinstriped denim hats in their hands, rumbled through the door. A moment after that Mr. White arrived, his hair oiled, face raw from shaving, his head ducked down, his eyes looked--could it be hopeful?--darkened under his thatched eyebrows. Behind him was the most beautiful girl Cilla had ever seen, in a lovely simple dress that must have looked much better on the girl wearing it than it did on display at the shop. Cilla knew this was Mr. White's daughter, Snow. She realized she continued to think of Snow as a girl even though she was clearly marrying age. At the same time she knew it was simplest and safest to continue thinking of her as a child. As everyone shuffled into place for the ceremony, Cilla couldn't help but recall her first wedding, lush with lilies, organdy, and taffeta, beaming with pride and love, overflowing with youth and beauty. Cilla sighed and turned to Mr. White, who took her hand in his. She could tell he'd taken an emery board to his callouses earlier that day. The vows were exchanged so quickly it was over before Cilla thought it had really begun. When Snow came forward to sign on the witness line, Cilla was struck again by her beauty. At once reminded of her own smooth skin lustrous eyes that had made her the talk of the town when she was about that age. The sight of Snow stirred a flutter in Cilla's chest that she recognised from long ago. Cilla forced her eyes up to meet Mr. White's own warming face. Snow had his eyes, Cilla couldn't help but notice.

10 Minute Prompt: Covering your shame with praise. (write-a-thon edition)

Shame is every way I do not fit
Too big too loud too mouthy
too flashy too enthusiastic
Shame stains my face bright red
Praise refreshes a healthy glow
Shame shrinks my idea of myself
Praise shows me a better view
Shame robs me of my love
Praise pays it back with interest
Shame shackles me in a windowless basement
Praise takes me for a hike in the green
woods that smell of honeysuckle
Shame holds my head underwater
Praise shows me how to surf the towering waves
Shame tells me to shut the fuck up
Praise asks me to sing louder.

10 Minute Prompt: How to love me enough (write-a-thon edition)

Do you love me enough to leave me
locked in a car on a hot day?
Do you love me enough to throw me
to the bullies when they grab at your lunch money?
Do you love me enough to throw
me at the kidnappers who came for you?
Do you love me enough to punch me
and fracture the bones in my face
the face that earns my fame and fortune?
Do you love me enough to carve your sign
on my back while you sit on my ass
pinning me on the bed with a pillow for my screams?
Do you love me enough to take all my money
knowing I’ll be homeless when you do?
Do you love me enough to starve me
just to let me know who’s boss?
Do you love me enough to lock me
in the basement and give me 5 babies
to love even more?
Do you love me enough to shave my head
so the world knows the shame I am to you?
Do you love me enough to let me love you back
in all those ways?

10 Minute Prompt: Treating the World Like an Object (write-a-thon edition)

My footfalls, bare, tender, tanned
sink into sand, or thud on sun heated boulders
Everywhere I step is a road
Simply for having stepped
My footfalls take me over gravel, over grass
The earth is my road
She lies ahead of my feet
No matter where I turn
She places herself before me
No matter where I look
She reinvents herself for my travels
She begs me to take the next step
As if her existence relies
On each footfall.

The Conversation (write-a-thon edition poem)

Your eyes looked, your head turned
Your lips smacked, your back leaned
into me
Your chin held your face
Your hair claimed your shoulders
Your hands hold it all in
Your feet step out,
Your knees buckle under
Your ass takes a seat,
Your hips roll like thunder
Your face a mask of discontent,
then interest, then indecision
then impatience
like watching TV
Your stomach grumbles under your breasts
your knuckles pop, grind
your fingers fiddle with the air
Your nose wrinkles under bountiful cheeks
that shine like pavement after a shower
Your ears are ready to run away--
diamond studs twinkle,
giving away their hiding place.

Letter to the Editor 1990

[In 1989 and 1990 I was an activist with ACT UP/Seattle, the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power. During that time I advocated for people with AIDS and other minorities disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS.]

To the Editor,

And to the gentleman from Renton who speaks of the fascism of ACT UP (12/14), the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power. I get the feeling that he, like many others, gets his information from a biased or uninformed press. Action taken by ACT UP may be viewed at fascist, but its politics are more socialist. I'd like to remind the gentleman, and other readers that if it weren't for the fascism of ACT UP locally, there would be no AIDS Housing of Washington in Madison Valley. And if it weren't for the fascism of ACT UP nationally the price of AZT (still the only marketed medication specifically for HIV) would not have been reduced to the still exorbitant $90 a dose. If it weren't for the fascism of ACT UP internationally, there would be almighty few, if any, persons with AIDS involved with policy making at Clinical Trials Units, on city councils, foundations, medical associations, and other places where important decisions are made which directly affect the lives and treatment of people with AIDS.

The ultimate aim of ACT UP is to end the AIDS crisis. Many radical changes must occur around how we perceive HIV/AIDS and the different groups who have vested interests -- PWAs, whose lives are at stake, and Boroughs-Welcome, whose livelihood is enhanced by that $90 a dose chemical, to name just two of those groups. I am heartened by the fact that there are people like the gentleman from Renton who keep their eyes open and their brains in gear. These people will get the message when it is clear enough to be gotten: that AIDS is not a gay white male disease, that there are no "innocent victims" which implies a punishment for the "guilty," and that the industry which has sprung up around AIDS belies the worst evils of our society-- racial and sexual bigotry, which inform the course of action taken against this disease.

Sincerely,
Caren Corley,
Seattle

Haiku (write-a-thon edition)

Nesting terns raucous
rise crying skyward, heads turn
waterward, eye fish.