NaPoWriMo, Day 11

I was so tired last night that I accidentally labeled it Day 11, although it was really Day 10.  So here is the REAL Day 11!  I went with the prompt du jour from yesterday on the NaPoWriMo website, which was to write a poem in which multiple things are happening at once.  This prompt spoke to me, because, well, my life.

 

TUESDAY MORNING, 6:52 A.M.

The cat meows–chirps, really–

for his breakfast.  I’m watching

the clock and considering the definition

of late.  My eight-year-old feeds the cat

before feeding himself, like how on airplanes

you’re not supposed to give your child an air mask

before you fix your own, because what good

are you to anyone if you can’t breathe.

 

Late is when the clock’s hands

are no longer a metaphor, I decide,

so I read the news on my phone.

The cat eats noisily.  Sometimes he growls

when he’s happy.  I take this to mean

that journalism is dead, since our own eyes

can’t tell a gun from a phone,

or whether vaccines cause autism,

or whether the earth is flat.

 

A meteor lands on our breakfast table.

It’s small, so no one minds.  The cat

growls his approval.  My son, who loves science,

collects it for show and tell, leaving behind

a tiny scorch mark.  I google

how to get burn marks out of finished wood.