in today’s mail
the cornbread recipe
her slanted cursive
the last meal
we ever shared
*
all evening
rain and for hours
double rainbow
too sweet for poems
but oh, so sweet
*
now
it burns
the noose
of an old
lie
*
in aisle seven
the sulky girl hugs a bag
of jumbo marshmallows
you must have said no,
the stranger says to me
*
even the splash
of dishwater heart-shaped
on the counter
any excuse
to think of love
*
waving
at the woman
in the green pick up
I toss a poem
to her rearview mirror
“When they ask you what you’re thinking, say, Love.”
I especially like tankas 1, 3, 5, & 6. When you teach your next writing workshop (stories, not poems) either/all of these four could be used as prompts—the first three even moreso.
Numbers 1 & 4 are so narrative in quality, it’s especially fun to see these as tanka. I like the title idea too, of trying to piece together.