Poem a Day: 5

5.

Assignments

1. 

Leave your house and walk three miles

     west.  Stop and breathe deeply, letting

whatever air enters your lungs stay there,

     at their bottoms, for one two three long

seconds.  Push it all out slowly, until

     you are entirely empty.

2.

Use the phrase “ten million million

in a sentence.”  Add the word “mirror.”

Draw your face on a piece of waxed paper

using an old pencil drawn from your

junk drawer.  Crumple the paper and

throw it to your dog.  See if she eats it.

If she does, your assignment is completed.

If not, you must begin again.

3.

Plant strawberries in the back beds.

4.

Empty one of your drawers (doesn’t

matter which one) into a garbage sack.

     Drop it off at the Good Will.

5.

Kiss a relative stranger.

          (Using tongue: extra credit.)

6.

Tattoo a dandelion

     on the back of your neck.

Invite your friends and family

     to blow it out.

7.

Put on a pair of plaid pants or kilt
     with some sort of history
          (perhaps they belonged to your
                grandfather, the one who fought
          in WWII, or an aunt
     who flew
airplanes over oceans).

Go up on your roof at
     7 AM, lugging
          an old style boom box
               filled with a bagpipe cassette
          purchased in a yardsale.

Invent a clan jig
     and dance it,
          waving your hands
               in wild sun-inviting circles
          over your
     aging head.

April 5, 2014