NO APOLOGiES OFFERED: COLLECTiVE POETRY, ROUND 14

On Wednesdays, I post a photograph on social media and ask my followers to contribute a line of poetry inspired by the photo. Later, I attempt to cobble together a cohesive piece of writing from as many of these suggestions as I can. If you’d like to get into the fun, follow me on my Rasjacobson Art Facebook Page.

This week’s piece is inspired by a photograph I took of myself in the bathtub. The story is pure fiction. Mostly.

There were 20 different suggestions made this week, and several were similar. In the end, I borrowed 6 suggestions from followers.

no apologies offered

It was chillingly true.

You walked out

of the soot without leaving 

any footprints, but

there were hard questions 

that needed answers — Why

did you shout

when the sparrows

were nesting?  And why

did you wait until that

second Saturday to tell me, ‘No,’ 

so emphatically, over

chocolate sundaes, taking all

of our sweetness

& washing it down the drain,

so that today I woke alone,

my name having lost its use,

having forgotten how to speak. 

There are no prayers 

left to pray, no words 

left to say. I am a whisper 

in the darkness, a stone 

lost in the sky, a reflection 

of the Universe

in my one wet eye. 

They say every river begins

with a single drop,

but there is only one ring

in the bathtub &

it is not on my hand.