Job Description (poems as prompts)

One of the greatest gifts of writing this newsletter has been getting to read poems written by community members. I often find these poems swirling in my brain or thumping in my heart as I go about my day. This beautiful poem by A. Wilder Westgate (shared in response to this post) is one such example.

Our sick bed is not a bed.
Bowls and blankets litter
the cushions of the couch
between us while two little
bodies sleep soundly, curled up
in our two bigger sets of arms.
The lingering smell of puke,
the snores of my spouse,
and the steady breathing
of my son surround me as
I gaze out the window at
the snow we've been awaiting.
The worst is over now.

The feelings of tenderness and exhaustion that come with caring for sick little ones are deeply familiar to me. In that sense, this poem held up a mirror to my own experiences, inviting me back into them. In other ways, the poem acted more like a window for me—an invitation to peer into an experience adjacent to my own but also different in meaningful ways. As poems flow into the space between writer and reader, they can take on any number of shapes—mirror, window, escape hatch, cozy blanket, or even jet of cold water to the face (hopefully, right when you need just that thing). As A’s poem swirled around inside me, it inspired a poem of my own, quite different in its mood and form. This is my first time attempting a prose poem (a poem structured in paragraphs rather than traditional lines and stanzas). Here it is . . .

Photo by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash

The Poem

Job Description

I’m sure there were times when we carried the load together. One child held against my chest, the other coughing into yours, ‘til all our bodies burned with fever. But mostly what I remember are the times when I was alone and holding it all together. Like the time when you and the baby were fine, the toddler and I were not. Were puking up our guts over and over in an endless night, and you never got up. Just laid in bed. And I tip-toed about. Tried to let you sleep. Like it was my job to hold everything.

I held the baby to my nipple, led the toddler to the bowl—the robin’s egg blue one that never flushed anything, but this was only bile now. We barfed cheek to cheek, and the baby cried from the way my spasms shook him.

You cried out, too, because I hadn’t closed the door. A beam of light hit your eye. You couldn’t hold your rage. “Worst fucking night” you boomed in the half dark. And though sick and weak on the bathroom floor, I halfway found it funny that anyone could be such an ass.

But you kept on asking and I kept on giving, and now I see the reason I held on so long is because I made it my job to hold everything. I made it my job to hold everything in. 

The Prompt

Now it’s your turn to play! Read some poems. Any poems! They can be poems by famous poets, obscure but published poets, or poems you find right here in the comments threads or posts of 100 Poems. Allow one of these poems to thump around in your head and heart, then pen a poem of your own inspired by that inner movement. If you’re feeling brave and want the arms of our little community to wrap around you in a big group hug, then share your poem and a bit about what prompted it in the comments thread of this post. If you want to join the conversation but don’t want to share your own poems (or haven’t yet gotten around to writing any), we’d love to have you join in other ways. Post a comment to tell us about a poem you’ve read and loved. Or post a comment to tell us about your creative process—or the things that might be blocking it. There’s no script to follow; all you have to do is show up as you are. Thank you for being here!