A KIND OF DOTING

Muriel Nelson

Strange beings we are.

Baby facemakers

playing the lifetime sport

of peek-a-boo.

Verify, verify, we say

believing our peeks

between cheaters' fingers. Look!

Everything's true

(in wedges). How magical, then,

are fingers and eyelids.

When they close, powers go free.

Wonderful, too,

are weaknesses. Like mine

for strengths out of view --

forces of tree candles, male cones,

maidenhair ferns,

bulbs, seas, yeast.

Our fondness for bubbling

in bread, egg whites, cream --

the air we love

to eat. Dearer still

is the air we can breathe

but not notice while singing requiems

and when, under our breaths,

pain arrives like sunset

in cathedrals, unhurried,

taking over, dismissing all worries

like children -- Yes,

you may go now, yes. Then black

as windows' lead,

pain looms. You try to slow

your breaths while it finds

that place behind the eyelids

and grows in the dark.

You endure. Then you see a stem --

a live path -- to a quiet iris.

WRITING PROMPT: Read this poem aloud. Then, using it as a trigger, write a response, or whatever else comes to you.