Written on 5 May 2019; published on 31 May 2019

Dear Ones,

At creative writing class at the beginning of May, we were asked to write a story about a particular time of day. The time of day was chosen by another class member. I drew 5:30 am, and wrote this lyrical story … or maybe it’s a prose poem …

Slow-Mo Woe
An Unlikely Poem by Alice B. Clagett, 5 May 2019

5:30 a.m. Skeeziks! I slept too late.
. . . All across California, dreams of luaus in Hawaii
. . . are snapping shut,
. . . like corporate valises,
. . . boxing up wishes
. . . in oh-so-regretful reels
. . . of workday expectations.

5:45 a.m. All over California I hear:
. . . Put another film on the projector, mister …
. . . I wanna be the Amazon Queen,
. . . not the youngest actress in “Les Miserables.”
. . . Cast me opposite Fred Astaire –
. . . I want to dance my way through life! …
. . . Today I’d like to be ET –
. . . anything but a secretary.

6:00 a.m. Wash face, brush teeth, feed cat, grab keys.
. . . Out the deplorable door
. . . to slo-mo woe
. . . once mo’

. . . . .

Alice B. Clagett

Except where otherwise noted, “The Chalice and the Crucible” by Alice B. Clagett … https://chaliceandcrucible.com/ … is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0) … https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ ..