Thursday, April 20, 2017

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.


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