Today's prompt urged us to write a "Kay Ryan-esque" poem, with short, tight lines, interwoven rhyme, a little philosophy, and maybe an animal. If you want a primer, a couple of my favorite poems by Kay Ryan are "
"A Certain Kind of Eden" and
"A Hundred Bolts of Satin." Enjoy!
Lizard Memory
Reptilian impulse—slanted sunlight
cues the past with precision out
of my control. Lower brain runs
the course of habit. You rise whole
out of ten years’ thick honey.
We once sat in the sun
on a western Nebraska
butte, resting our hiking boots.
We watched a lizard bask
on a rock, still as a church. Clouds
built arches to everywhere, and
in that moment, we could not be touched.
And we still cannot—not the we
we were, that day. Cornfields and miles
and mis-numbered days push out
from that butte. Even so, when the sun
overshoots its mark, and
a certain breeze doubles back
to pick up what has fallen,
something primal scrabbles in
to scratch on the present.