(Response to Gigan challenge)
Summer swelters beyond my exhausted window
hot inside air pulled outside where it belongs.
I’m comfortable here at my computer –
a cool cat writing poetry,
sporting a beret back in a 1950s café.
When I was nine to thirteen, I loved Maynard G. Krebs,
the Beatnik poet on Dobie Gillis.
He broke all the rules my parents lived by –
the ones I knew I dare not break.
Strange the memories that surface while
summer swelters beyond my exhausted window?
When I was nine to thirteen, I loved Maynard G. Krebs,
at fifteen had a crush on a poet friend in high school,
discovered I was bound by societal rules of engagement.
Then, at eighteen, I broke the rules, got pregnant, had an illegal abortion –
a decision many of our American sisters may have to make again.
Great use of the form. This poem has weight.
Thanks Sharon…. I had no idea where it was going … I was led by my history right to the final line.
Thank you… This was a tough one… But I like this GIGAN structure and will use it again.
So glad you used the Gigan to echo what’s going on in American society at the moment. So many people dismiss Roe v. Wade is a “women’s” issue and yet this decision will touch millions of lives in so many crucial ways.
Your first line is a cracking opener! thank you for sharing.
thanks Katrina…. I have a fan in my window that can be used to exhaust air…so I had a chuckle when I wrote that line…because the window is actually exhausting air but there’s also the metaphor of the window being exhausted