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)