We can't replace the fat
Italian chef salt shakers—
antique store into tissue paper,
plastic bag,
accidentally trash.

Wait up,
I haven't seen you in weeks.
I've been back to pillow,
elbow to pillow,
easy to locate.

I'm hoping we'll have
Sunday spaghetti nights,
neighborhood invited.

You got me a snowy owl for salt
and a wide-eyed squirrel for pepper.
And this is what we do:
replace.

How quickly my garden died
when I stopped carrying water.

Now I am swollen.
I'm eating less salt,
scared shitless.

I'm hoping we'll have
plates still to serve.

"We."

You definitely will.

You're
growing peppers,
setting up a projector screen
in your backyard.

Come around more.

I'm a permanent guest in a friend's house,
dying
to host.

The Pull: Exploration of identity (disability, poverty; a severe and progressive diagnosis)

Getting started by listening to a song you like and choosing a lyric from it.

Summer With You by Jennarie

“Wait up, I haven’t seen you in days”

“I’m hoping we’ll have…”

There are more flavorful lyrics, but I liked these as inspiration for structure.

Try to include:

Snail
Grandma’s cooking
Pillow
A Lost Item

I thought it’d be a fun challenge to try to include all the prompts. I was going to use imagery of my laptop sticker of a snail that says, “It’s okay to go slow,” but that feels like a different poem, so 3/4 achieved.

Background:

The most recent poetry book I read was Peluda by Melissa Lozada-Oliva. I would love to put together a collection with as strong a theme as that.

I've been diagnosed with heart failure in my 30s. The poem I wrote is about coming to terms with doors closing, and the bittersweet realizations (most days, bitter) that life is already moving ahead without me.

The story could be cliché in the trope of "waiting for the grandkids to call on the weekends," but I hope I made it personal with imagery of specific domestic longings and the theme of hosting gatherings. If there is more I could do to clarify that the speaker is the same age as the "you" (my brother) in the poem, I wonder if that could personalize it more, too? I welcome feedback.

(I also regret using the owl and squirrel salt and pepper shakers as grief imagery because I do love them, haha.)

Thank you so much for the class and for getting me writing tonight.

Snowy Owl, Wide-Eyed Squirrel - image 1 - student project

Sarah Thunell

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