April28
Odds are I will be up way too late, thanks to work, so when I saw that today’s PAD challenge was “sestina,” I nearly threw in the towel. But there are only two more days after this, so…
A Shot at a Sestina
I am married to a former Army sniper.
I have seen her shoot a target through the heart
and wing the zipper pull of a hated dress.
She likes things immaculate – always dries her
feet before stepping out of the shower. The part
of her hair is always on the left. I stress
how she looks, because the stress
she places on looking sharp, that’s Sniper
101 as far as she’s concerned, a part
of playing the role, cards close to her chest,
as is not allowing the wind that dries her
hair to chap her hands. She dresses
with care, with foresight. Her dress
uniform is as good as new; no stress,
strain, or stain marks anywhere. She dries her
skin by patting, not scrubbing, the way a sniper
places her foot on ground in the heart
of enemy country, where mines blast apart
anyone who walks without heed. She imparts
a story about a simpleton as she buttons her dress
and then precisely pins on a brooch. My heart
skips a beat at how good she looks. The distress
of all those nights when there’s need of a sniper
somewhere else in the city – she dries her
hands before coming to bed. It drives her
nuts when she can’t wash her hands, that’s a part
of being deployed she endured, since no sniper
worth her salt would risk a mission for dress
or hygienic standards that stress
routine over results. Still, her heart
is half-soap, half-knife, all fire. The heart
of our house is the kitchen. There, she dries her
own teas – there’s lavender, for stress,
plus, of skullcap and mint each a part.
There she bakes madeleines. There we dress
the quails and doves she collects. Once a sniper,
always a hunter. Some would stress the heart
as a refuge, but after storms, my sniper dries her
weapon and its parts the way she dons a dress.
- pld
–
Process notes:
(1) Total time: about two hours to write, and then another hour to post it at PAD and here (internet connection being majorly flaky AND poky today).
(2) My initial keywords were “sniper,” “sense,” “swear,” “dress,” “pat,” and “stress.” I changed them as I wrote the first stanza, as the scenario made itself known to me.
(3) Two stanzas in, I realized “dries her” is actually a terrible choice for a keyword (the lines don’t sound right breaking there), but decide to plow on regardless for the sake of completing the exercise.
(4) The poem itself is beyond rescue, but there are a few lines here and there that I may end up using as the seeds of other poems or stories. Which are lines I wouldn’t ordinarily have gotten around to writing, given I would have abandoned this poem much earlier if I hadn’t been writing it for a challenge. Yay for challenges.
(5) Sorry about the title. There’s probably a special punishment for me somewhere… *ducks*
I’ve not been as dedicated to NaPoWriMo this year as I was last year, and as a result I’ve written, so far, ten haiku and five poems (one of which was very very long, but still). It’s day 24 and I don’t think I can write nine poems today to catch up, so I’m admitting defeat. However, it was still worth doing - I wrote five poems and ten haiku! I’ll continue to post the inspirational poems at my blog in case anybody is benefitting from them.