Auntie

Sitting on the old porch
where so many have sat,
the almond tree blooming
her white flowers like
Angel wings 
covering the yard 
in a magic carpet,
the aroma of our coffee 
and cigarettes mingling 
with the muskiness 
of the old wood
under our bare feet, 
you reached out 
taking my hand 
in yours, telling me 
something about my 
own self, 
cushioning the shock 
in your breezy-soft voice,
leaving my mouth dry 
as the swirling ashes 
of the secret revealed

Today for NaPoWriMo I used this Sensory Prompt from Poetry Today by Maya C. Popa:

#1 — In “How Far Away We Are,” Ada Limón writes:

I want to give you something, or I want to take

something from you. But I want to feel the exchange,

the warm hand on the shoulder, the song coming out

and the ear holding on to it.

Prompt: Write a poem that explores an exchange between two individuals. Focus on sensory experience (remember, you have five senses). Aim to include each sense at least once.

My “Something Small, Every Day (or so)” series is inspired by Austin Kleon’s piece here where he says, “Building a body of work (or a life) is all about the slow accumulation of a day’s worth of effort over time.”