National Poetry Writing Month 2016, Day #5

Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is another one that I kind of groaned at inside when I read it. Seeds? Few things incite more boredom in me than the idea of looking at garden seed catalogues. I think I made it work well enough, aided by writing this while watching the Talking Heads Chronology DVD (hence the ‘building on fire’ reference). Also, ‘purple kissing bean’ is an intentional misreading of the Roughwood Seed Collection’s Purple Kingsessing Bean…

Seedy

Stolen with the bull’s blood
a stash of dakota ivory left behind
for the scarlet runner to play dress-up
showed up years later
in the file cabinet of a mortgage lifter

It survived the building on fire
though it melted enough
that miniature white pieces
had fallen through the spaces
where the panels didn’t quite fit together

Tongues of fire gobbled up all the rest
as though it were pure Irish grey

(Man, I miss that stuff…)

My early moonbeam
my purple kissing bean
stuck by me for some reason

She was uncomplicated that way
the pink quartz snow cap
held no interest for her

She was nobody’s sugar baby
that’s why I loved her

What’s she up to now?

(5 April 2016)