In your poem today, similarly compare your everyday present life with your past self, using specific details to conjure aspects of your past and present in the reader’s mind.
Three facilities. Three voicemails. Forms across the kitchen counter, edges gone soft from handling. Late April in Maryland, which means a cardinal, fighting with his reflection. My sister is forgetting to eat. In Cayman, I walked into water so clear you could count fish around your ankles. Sand that hurt to look at, even through the sea. Small fish came and went, knocking against my legs; curious, or just hungry, I never knew which. Water warm. I could have stood there for as long as I wanted. I had no idea.
Prompt Inspiration
Via NaPoWriMo
In “After Turning the Clocks Back,” Jennifer Moxley links present with past, using a few well-placed details to invoke both a sense of the daily “now” and a nostalgic sense of the speaker’s long-ago life.
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