Just in Time

A poem about a totally ordinary daily occurrence

Mid-sentence I remembered the bagel The conversation continued Though I dropped the phone Onto the purple lace comforter And raced for the kitchen Grabbing a paper towel Unable to find anything else I threw open the oven door Grabbed the bagel And gave the dial a sharp twist Hearing the hiss wind down then stop Though furnace like air still rushed past my face Dark brown, black in places With enough cream cheese still edible I returned to the bedroom toting bagel and knife White grey tub of creamy cheese Perched precariously on the edge of the plate Wedgwood blue Left over from a gift of chocolate Sent as a friendship gift Longer ago than I can remember I could hear the tinny voice as I reached the threshold And picking up the phone It was as if I’d been there all along My absence unnoticed “. . . cruise, isn’t that nice?” “Mmm hmm”, I replied dutifully It’s disconcerting When a caller clearly couldn’t care less Whether you’re actually there I felt like a sea sponge, a mindless bag or rocks And not the pet ones that kids cared about “. . . can you believe it? It’s the second time in a year” “Mmm hmm”, I replied once more I slathered cheese on the cinnamon sweet bagel Just barely burnt in places Definitely still edible Rotating the phone mouthpiece up I took a big bite and chewed slowly Closing my eyes, I sighed “. . . then she said . . .” Phone rotated down, “Mmm hmm”, then back up again Not even these gymnastics Could compromise my enjoyment Thank God for cinnamon raisin bagels They make anything tolerable

This one is a bit unusual for me. The poetry I most enjoy reading as well as writing are those that are made up of strong images, creative word choices and description, and unusual phrasing with just what is necessary on the page.

I’ve never been drawn to poems that sound like prose that has just been divided into lines instead of being left as a paragraph. They feel clumsy to me.

That’s not to say I don’t like prose poetry, but then that form is composed with figures of speech common to poetry and the liberal use of poetic devices. There are some poems other than prose poems that I have read that, despite being similar to prose in form and structure, seem to describe simple daily scenes in an engaging way that flows like poetry.

Tonight, I decided to try my hand at composing a piece that was somewhere between a prose poem and plain prose. I put down the text as if I was just describing the event while including a few poetic terms and phrasing, including even the smallest detail of the situation. I then went back and altered the format slightly, taking out excess words, revising some of the more ordinary language and changing some of the phrasing and rhythm slightly.

I’m not sure what I think of the outcome but perhaps I managed to create the sense of the relatively common experience described in it. I can’t say that it feels like it’s as much a poem as some of my other efforts but it does seem to at least have a poetic feel to it. Enough so that I will likely repeat the exercise sometime in the future.

Natalie Frank (Taye Carrol) has had her poetry featured in several anthologies including Untimely Frost. Her fiction has been published in Haunted Waters Press, Weirdbook Magazine, Siren’s Call Publications, Lycan Valley Press and Zero Fiction among others. Her collection of poetry, Disguised I Breathe, In Love I Hold, can be found on Amazon under her pen name, Taye Carrol.

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© Natalie Frank, Ph.D. 2020