Poem 20: Games

Prompt : "write a poem that incorporates the vocabulary and imagery of a specific sport or game. Your poem could invoke chess or baseball, hopscotch or canasta, Monopoly or jai alai. The choice is yours!"

*

Candy Crush

For hours we inhabit 

the living-room --

she on the couch and I 

on the chaise --

tap tap tapping our iPads, 

pulling down

red and green 

and purple and yellow 

jelly beans 

and jaw breakers, 

pastilles and gum drops 

(or are those Chicklets?),

Mike & Ike shaped lozenges 

that stripe

and explode 

in patterns of threes and

fours, 

our neurons firing 

in the screens' square blazes

as if we stare 

into pale campfires,

together but

separate 

in some odd, manufactured 

forest,

far from human commerce 

or conversation. 

Mother and daughter

sharing 

the same electric space,

wordlessly

comparing scores, 

and once in a long while 

looking at each other's 

blank faces

as our five tries dry up

and the application 

loses its grip.

It's July.

Sun holds our neighborhood

in a humid hand,

squeezing,

but we're safe 

in this

refrigerated containment,

waiting to 

reload,

waiting to 

crush through

another hour 

or two,

side by side in

comfortable silence.