#WriteOut '24, a @WritingProject Tradition. I Took the First Day to Walk the Dog & Look for Signs to Help Write a Poem (Contemplating Stratford)

I didn't take the street signs as my prompt, but the signs along the sidewalk. It was a great day to be outdoors: crisp air, nice clouds, some sun, and Sunday serenity. 

Signs (Stratford, 2024)

b.r. crandall

The legs tell me I’m old.

They’re splotched and shredding with pink skin,

immuned to a body destined to attack itself.

Like I attack these lawn signs. With each step taken, 

the middle phalange grows more muscular from 

the lazer beams I shoot. It’s my political nature.

The paper said to squash them, the red wings

with polka-dots hidden behind the gray scales.

Yet someone asked me, “What makes them invasive?

Couldn’t the same be said for us?” And somewhere a

lantern manufactured in China went out…

The moths went to find another porch.

I saw this kid, though, wobbling black glasses too

large for his scrawny head. He wore a black cape

and held a wand as he danced macabre in front

of 14-feet skeletons his dad put up. He was happy

in childhood; dogs down the street were leaping in piles 

of maple, oak, and sycamore leaves

awaiting their own signals to go home.

It made me curious how the Paugassuts would see

such surgery, this piece of land north of the Sound

…these current roads and sidewalks 

squashed with bug guts, bubblegum, & cigarette butts.