We’re halfway to the finish line of the Poem-a-Day challenge. Here are the excerpts from Week 2.

Day 9 Prompt: So <Blank>

You will / return to me / like the swallows / of Capistrano / to build / your nests / under the eaves / of my mission walls. (So Long)

Day 10 Prompt: Travel

In the city, / you rarely go from place to place alone. You’re stuck / in tin boxes underground, breathing in armpits and belches, / turning away from the man nodding off next to you.  (Commuting)

Day 11 Prompt: Sonnet or Anti-form

Spring’s blush / Dabbed in light strokes / As the days grow longer / The color in her cheeks deepens / To green (Cinquain)

Day 12 Prompt: Guilty

But you’ve banished yourself to the basement of your mind / where you watch the replays on reel-to-reel to pinpoint / that one wrong move, but it’s never just one, is it? (Mea Culpa)

Day 13 Prompt: Family

My father sent Ginger Snaps, boxed drinks, / and microwavable meals wrapped / in the Daily News sports pages / then stuffed in a small U-Haul box. (Care Packages)

Day 14 Prompt: Popular Saying

Life is a tunnel / I’m navigating with my hands. / Sometimes I have to stoop / or crawl to keep going. (Slowly but Surely)

Day 15 Prompt: One Time

As a girl, I had been told about this day / when my body would bleed / and it would be a normal part / of becoming woman. But nobody said / it could happen in the middle of math / with 19 pairs of eyes. (One Time in 6th Grade)

Here are excerpts from the poems from Week 1 of the Poem-A-Day Challenge. Prompts courtesy of Poetic Asides.

Day 2 Prompt: Not Today

Friends are more bold in their predictions / each new person a possibility, a prospect / their you never knows float in your mind / like hot air balloons—colorful and grand, / but always disappearing from view. (The Question of Love)

Day 3 Prompt: <blank> of Love

I can’t see the driver’s face, / but I imagine him stroking / her knee, wrapping his sweet / talk in a smooth baritone. (Look of Love)

Day 4 Prompt: Beginning or End

It begins and ends with boxes—/ some stuffed and taped, others / flattened and stacked in a corner. (Moving)

Day 5 Prompt: Element

He wanted something to symbolize / his marriage vows. Tungsten was the strongest / element that would still bend to the will of love. (The Strongest Element)

Day 6 Prompt: A Sound

Sometimes / nothing but the roar / of the impossible sea / returning (Silence)

Day 7 Prompt: Discovery

That sinking feeling is not / from discovering the lie / but from realizing we’ve known / the truth the whole time (Icebergs)

Day 8 Prompt: Panic

I hear the boom, stop, run back faster faster. / The yellow mushroom cloud fogs the sky, my eyes. (Mariam on the Way to the Exam)

What better way to jumpstart the blog than by jumping into the Poem-a-Day Challenge. I had debated whether I would do the challenge because I didn’t think I would be able to sustain 30 days of poetry writing. But that’s how I always feel on March 31st, and by April 30th, I’m glad I have a pile of new work to sift through.

As in the past, I will post the prompt and a few lines from each poem from the past week. Here’s today’s poem:

Day 1 Prompt: Reminiscing

Your dear old friends share their new

scars and hopes and you will leave unsure

how either will turn out. A part of you

will want to keep everything in its old place

but that’s like trying to hold back a river

with your weak hand. You can go home again.

You can’t stop home or yourself from changing.

I will post more excerpts next week!