read write prompt #3: play with your pieces
I sort of did this week’s Read Write Prompt. That is, I wrote three poems on three different pieces of my life, as The Polka Dot Witch suggested, but I wasn’t able to get past one of the pieces I chose, which was “first death.” That one stuck with me, so I focused on it and decided to share it as this week’s contribution.
First death
Floor, gurney, ambulance —
last places you still had something
to do with your body.
Spots of blood left behind
would not release from the carpet.
We threw away your things, stayed on our knees
for hours trying to dissolve all traces of you
from the heavy foot traffic of our lives.
The final grain of your voice had begged
for morphine and wheezed
to mother that you loved her
as if you could finally convince her of it.
In the waiting room, the family friends who clung to me
smelled like alcohol and rotting gums.
Riding in the back seat of the Grand Prix a week before
on the way home from the hospital,
I heard what you whispered to mother
as you leaned over the center console:
I’m afraid I’m not long for this world.
It’s the only time we heard you use the word afraid.
This is when I learned the world did not belong to us,
that instead we belonged to it.
It bothers me that I don’t know
exactly what happened next.
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It has stuck in my mind too…
This is very good but at little too close to home at the moment (I lost my Dad recently).
Awesome images and descriptions. That “as if you could finally convince her of it” took me by surprise but sets the right uncomfortable tone for this well-written piece.
well written accounting of a memory that i am sure has branded itself on all of your hearts… difficult subject matter,, you handled it very well….
Wow. It’s so beautifully mundane, cause-and-effect.
I remember similar conversations with my grandmother before she passed away.
your first three lines are a poem in and of themselves: “Floor, gurney, ambulance — /
last places you still had something / to do with your body.” … in fact, i went back to them and counted syllables to see if they made a haiku … as the lead of this piece, they really set the tone!
I love it. It’s hard to put into words, because you already did it so well. A story, with dialogue, characters, and a ripple effect that stays with the reader – you gather so much with powerful, flowing language.
PDW is right about the first three lines. I was also struck by “trying to dissolve all traces of you/ from the heavy foot traffic of our lives.” I look forward to future drafts of this.
Jo, I am sorry that you lost your father. I have no words of comfort or advice. It’s one of the hardest things in the world to deal with. My thoughts are with you.
The detail is unsettling, as if it’s a déjà vu. But that’s probably the strength of the piece.
I’m sorry to learn about your loss, Jo. Truly am.
Rethabile, it’s the detail that I remember. There’s so much I can’t recall. It was so long ago, and I was in shock. It really does bother me that there’s so much I can’t recollect.
Disturbing (this is a good thing). I love the way intimate moments between mother and father are revealed-Even though the piece has a definite speaker it managed to get me to feel empathy for all characters. Father, Mother, Daughter.
A powerful distillation of personal experience & observation, which is, of course, the stuff of poetry.