Poetry Friday: I Sailed a Poem to the Grocery Store (original poem)

 

It’s been a while since I’ve participated in a Poetry Stretch at The Miss Rumphius Effect. In fact, I haven’t been doing daily poems, either. I had to put that ritual and several others on hiatus this winter in order to meet deadlines. It’s been about two months now without some of my daily creative habits, and I’m missing them!

Anyway, I read Tricia’s poetry prompt early this week, and Wednesday, I woke up with this poem blowing around in my head. It’s rough, but it was fun just to give myself a few minutes to actually get it down onto the screen!

This week’s prompt was to write a poem about your favorite way to travel. Here’s mine:

I Sailed a Poem to the Grocery Store

I sailed a poem to the grocery store

 

            The bus was late

            My bike had a flat

            I was too lazy to walk

 

But it was all right

Words like “feather” and “easement” billowed the sails

and I floated right over the asphalt, above the exhaust

anchored by the twin hulls of “only” and “below”

 

I took aboard two brown grocery bags,

raced waves down Portland Avenue,

and tried to keep apples and cheddar cheese and Diet Coke

from spilling overboard onto the real world

     (I think one apple hit a taxi,

     but I considered that fair exchange

     for the nightmare ride to

     Dance Expo last month, when the driver

     didn’t even look before

     streaking onto wild, honking 3rd Street)

 

I tacked the poem

tried to control the wind

until I woke up

 

and realized I was wasting a perfect sailing day

So I just followed the lead of the breeze

I climbed its mast up into clouds and

let the poem sail itself

 

–Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved

You can still participate in the
Poetry Stretch–it’s not too late! And don’t forget to take some time to enjoy this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at Becky’s Book Reviews.

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