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For Day 1 of the June Open Write, Dr. Sarah J. Donovan of Stillwater, Oklahoma invites us to write poetry using the mentor poet June Jordan’s poetry. You can read Sarah’s full prompt here.
Now This
these nights they are hormonal hot flash hell ~ flapping bedbirds fluffing sheets sleeplessly in all the heat and rumble of the dark
these nightmares they rage in ~ nocturnal carnage at the screaming speed of melatonin on the yellow eyes of a Great Horned Owl in a trembling tree hollow
these scarecrows they lurk now in apocalyptic meadows where as children we found peaceful slumber we called sweet dreams ~ all those sugarplums that once danced in our heads
Since I’ve been taking Meno to ease the symptoms of menopause (namely hot flashes that are like wandering the dungeons of hell in the middle of the night, after just crawling out of a shower of hot baby oil and syrup boiled with dead bugs and toads), I’ve had some colorful and interesting dreams. I think there is a mild sleep agent in it, but at least my dream recentl had an upside.
I invented a purse.
I was wandering with my late mother and her parents through these stores, and I don’t even know what we were doing or where we were, and they had wandered on up ahead. There was no conversation – I just knew they were there.
The stores were big rooms, that connected, but there was no middle-of-the-room merchandise. It was all lined along the walls.
I picked up a pair of flexible toe shoes, knitted like a slipper on top but soft rubber with floor grippers on bottom, and put them back. I walked on into the next connecting store and started making my way along the walls, looking at merchandise. We all looked like creeping mice, never going into the center of the huge rooms.
Then I spotted it.
The price tag: $81. It was splotched black, with intermittent patches of turquoise and shimmery champagne, a shoulder bag with a hinged lap desk that let down from the top and came off, allowing a writer to have a hard surface wherever inspiration struck, to journal even in the middle of nowhere with no desk or countertop space.
Another bag, a mahogany square tote, had a side sleeve that held a thin lap desk for a writer and gave support to one side of the bag. I didn’t look to see if there was one on the other side and the two pieces could connect like a puzzle and become a bigger piece, but hey – there’s another idea for the invention of my dreams.
I’ve had to cut back from 2 Meno gummies to 1 gummy to 1/2 of a gummy to restore some more logical and peaceful dreams without the lingering haunting feelings, but I must admit …..I’m curious about what other inventions I may have made by now if I hadn’t.
Common Threads 