After a months-long absence from blog reading and blog writing, I went straight to The Miss Rumphius Effect this morning for a little poetry stretching. The result is not particularly poetic, but the exercise felt great anyway.
For Alfred, Visiting From
My Daughter's Junior High Science Lab
Big
boa in
an undersized terrarium,
seldom
handled in
science class, unlike
Pedro,
the petite
possum who hangs
from
your finger,
displaying his parts --
Alfred
stays coiled
all weekend long.
His
eyes are
dark little berries.
Snakes
can't see,
my daughter says,
and
she sketches
him in pen.
When
he poops,
we observe it:
what
started out
as a rat
placed
in Alfred's
cage last Tuesday.
Could
Alfred survive
in the wild?
What
would he
find to eat?
If
nothing else,
a science lab
is
safe (unless
you're a rat).
I
wouldn't want
to be Alfred,
curled
so tight
all the time.
1 comments:
Happy note: We moved Alfred to Megan's room, with it's warm, glowy lamps and brighter lights, and he has become more active. He even stretched out this evening for a while.
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