:: “I love teaching poets. They never waste words.”
When I was working on my master’s in creative writing, I took poetry courses too. In fact, when I was an undergraduate, my first creative writing courses were in poetry. Later, one of my favorite narrative writing teachers said to me, “I love teaching poets. They never waste words.”
No one who knows me will ever say I don’t talk a whole lot. But I appreciate the sentiment about the written word. Economy on the page is so important. My books are short. I love writing novellas, even.
Anyways, here’s a poem I wrote back in, in my early 20s, in Baltimore.
Shower
Could this heat wipe me away
from yellow tiles and parquet floors
and doors I struggle to keep closed?
Could I be swept away entirely?
I watch water form rivers down
my belly, electric red streaks.
I stand strong under the barrage,
let the mounting pressure
hold me straight from within.
A hand—my own—reaches, twists
the bright chrome knob, releases the cool
burst. Water leaps from fingertips
held open, still reaching. From me drops
the day’s accumulation. Blue
rough longing and my odd ache
run down legs, swirl around toes
mix with other dirt and soil
soon sucked down.
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