It’s National Poetry Day, and the theme is “counting.” I don’t live in the UK, nor do I primarily think of myself now as a poet, although I wrote scads of poems when I was younger. But I decided to revisit my roots and stretch myself a bit this week.
I feel a degree of vulnerability in publishing something so different from what I usually share on Substack. However, I also want to honor my own creative path. As a sensitive person, my spirit is watered by letting my creativity be unbounded by genre or form. I’ll be back with an essay next week, but I hope you’ll take this as a gentle nudge to allow yourself stray from your beaten creative path.
Counting On
Back and forth, syllables pass between us,
“Un,”
Deux,
“Trois,”
Quatre,
Floating over the puppy, gnawing his five-legged octopus.
Pentapus, you named it, eyes twinkling.
Tentatively my words stretch across the room,
“Remind me, how do you say 17-20?”
An eyebrow lifts, suspecting my motivation is to
Quiz you, but relishing the chance to know
More than an adult.
A sharp inhale, then a speedy
Dix-sept, dix-huit, dix-neuf, vingt.
“Dix-sept, dix-huit, dix-neuf, vingt.”
Non! Madame says it’s vingt, like honk without the k.
You mime pressing a steering wheel, closer to driving than
To the little boy who sang eins, zwei, Papagei to his parakeet
across this same room.
Closer to 20.
“Vignt.”
I took French in high school. Love the poem, and congratulations on stretching like this, Lori.