today
The prompt from Poetry Thursday this week is to write a poem using the last line of a previous one. The line comes from this poem. Here is my offering:
Today
Marking time until daybreak
in Frasier reruns and infomercials,
I doze in-and-out of late night TV:
this is the day you come home.I don’t sleep well alone.
I don’t awake well, either.The pups bookend my body
as I stretch out on the couch,
missing you in dog days
without benefit of explanation.They know only to hate suitcases;
they are not pack animals.It’s not that you have been gone long,
it’s that you have been gone.
It’s not that I can’t live without you,
it’s that I don’t want to.It’s daylight and Gracie runs upstairs
convinced she will find you.“She’ll be home tonight,” I say
as she slinks back and sits at my feet.
Lola lays heavy on your purple pillow.
Pining is exhausting work.The day feels like a week for us all.
I pour my coffee and leave yours in the pot.For better or for worse, we said —
for richer and for poorer.
I want to go back and add one simple line:
for bed and for breakfast.
Peace,
Milton
This is great, you create really visible image and emotion.
i LOVE this! it is sentimental (which i usually shy away from) but it is sentimental in a great way. it tells a terrific story and i want to hear more!
I like poems which are vidid and tell us a story. Yours does.
Oh, how WONDERFUL, Milton! I especially liked the two stanzas
They know only to hate suitcases;
they are not pack animals.
It’s not that you have been gone long,
it’s that you have been gone.
It’s not that I can’t live without you,
it’s that I don’t want to.
… and of course “for bed and for breakfast” is a winner, too. Now I want to know the poem that starts with that line. 🙂
Peace and blessings,
Hedwyg
I enjoyed this especially the descriptions of the dogs ‘not pack animals’ indeed!
Others have already said it, but “not pack animals” is inspired imagery.
Oh, yes. I love this! It describes the pining so well…. I’m going to share it with my honey when we’re both home tonight. 🙂 “missing you in dog days/without benefit of explanation” – just lovely. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.
Heart-jerking beautiful! Descriptive, vivid, evocative!
some sly lines in there that capture the dichotomy in a wonderful way. Very nice! I like this.
This poem is sweet and very true. When someone you love isn’t home something just seems off – dogs, like humans are also very sensitive to this. Nice poem.
This poem is PURE YOU and that’s why I enjoyed it so much!
Milton –
I completely love this poem. You are amazing.
This is lovely. Oh to love and be loved like this. What a gift. And what a gift to share it with us.
Thanks.
loved it, in part because it is exactly me…except for the dogs. In my poem they are cats…
I love the last stanza… really, the whole thing, but the last stanza, really pulls it together. And I get the dogs (only have one, though, light of my life).