after the tents came down

The Big Tent Poetry prompt this week involved participants sharing a line or two from their own poetry for other members of the community to use in an original poem. You will find the contributed lines, here. I decided to use lines from five of the generous souls, and in honor of BTP's last prompt,** wrote the following:


after the tents came down

just after the tents came down
a wind kicked up from the valley -
the blue updraft of dust swirled around
a leather satchel, left behind.

inside the bag was a jet black wig
and the shining aquamarine satin
of the dancer's costume, tiny rip
under the arm, stitched 100 times.

it was left behind, and no one noticed,
that in her haste, Mona's once-sequined thoughts,
no longer shone, and what was left was
woozy haze from the bottle she drank between shows.

it began as a little shot with the clowns,
downed just to be polite, and became over time
the courage in her cup, to get her through
each routine with a placid smile covering the hurt.

and now at the next town, Mona sobered up
and realized that her bag was gone,
and she stared naked and alive in the mirror,
marveling at the miracle of the ordinary remainder.

Copyright © 2011 Nan P.


Thank you to the following BTP contributors for the following borrowed lines:

from Viv: marvel at the miracle of the ordinary
from Dick Jones: From the valley, a blue updraft of dust and seeds and wings.
from Pamela: Sequined thoughts no longer shine from unclear memory
from Kim Nelson: enough courage in my cup to get me through
from Joseph Harker: We downed them just to be polite

** When I learned that the organizers of Big Tent Poetry were taking down the tent, I was both saddened and grateful at the same time. I was so happy to find them and hop on from the very first prompt through a wonderful year of weekly prompts. I have enjoyed the community members I have met, some of whose blogs I now regularly follow. I have enjoyed weekly poetry writing so much, I plan to continue, and I will be checking out some other poetry prompt sites. I can't imagine any being quite the same as BTP, but change is indeed the only constant, and change is good. So off we go to continue writing in another way, shape, or manner, and thank you to Big Tent Poetry for the creative, inspiring, fun, and fulfilling writing prompts. (Lucky for me, I didn't do a poem a day in April, so I can go back to about 26 more prompts they offered, and write to those until I find my new poetry blog niche!)