Category Archives: NaPoWriMo

My Collection (NaPoWriMo 2019/12)

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They’re just stones, mostly
brown or grey, more or less round
and smooth in my hand.
They’re also bits of places
someone I love thought of me.

~ Rebekah Choat

 

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Going Back (NaPoWriMo 2019/11)

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The road still runs straight
but the surroundings have changed.
The once-dry creekbed
is bubbling over its banks;
the meadow is all abloom.

~ Rebekah Choat

 

Barometer (NaPoWriMo 2019/10)

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She knew it in a
prickling of her skin, even
before the sky. “Help
me get the washin’ in off
the line. It’s fixin’ to storm.”

~ Rebekah Choat

 

 

Dr’s appt (NaPoWriMo 2019/8)

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Ok, a confession. I actually wrote this one a bit over five years ago, right after being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA to the initiated). But only one other person has ever seen a draft of it before now (miss you, Ros), and it fits the jargon prompt to a T. My apologies to the shocked; your regularly reserved Rebekah will be back after this brief msg.

 

Oh, yeah?
You write down that I’m damaged –
RA, mod to sev –
then hand me a fistful of Rx
and a card that says,
“Come back 2 wks, f/u.”

You’ve taken note of my DOB, SSN,
TxDL, Member ID, and Group #,
as well as my ht, wt, temp, and bp.

You’ve sent me to the lab for
C-RP-IH, CCP IgG/IgA-LC, and HLA-B-LC;
then on to X-ray: SI jts, 2 vws.

Don’t waste words on the pt;
you don’t have to – you’re the MD,
this is your SOP, your MO.

Well, fine. See ya,
2 wks, f/u.

~ Rebekah Choat

 

 

 

Arcana (NaPoWriMo 2019/6)

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We all know magic words now:
please and thank you we’re taught in pre-school,
and go on to hocus pocus, open sesame,
accio, expelliarmus; charms and curses,
names of gods and angels. Only the strongest
ones retain great power, and we forget:
Amen. Yet. If.

~ Rebekah Choat

By the Sea (NaPoWriMo 2019/5)

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It was many and many a year ago –
seventy-five or -six summers or so –
near a cluster of cottages by the sea;
I can picture it still in my memory.

I was a child, and she was a child,
and I was solemn, and she was wild,
but we loved with a love that was more than love,
mixed with salt and the sea and the sun above.

We lived through that summer in fairy-tale land –
two sunburnt princesses, hair full of sand.
Then our mothers packed up, and we left with the tide
for our distant home-places; she howled, and I cried.

I waited the next year, but she never came;
and I’m never quite sure I remember her name.

~ Rebekah Choat