Poetic response to the Hands On prompt:
How To Defy Death On A Sheet of Blue Paper
For Edward Hirsch
Take a month of Sundays—
a summer month,
humid and dry, when schools
echo with heavy custodial footsteps
congregating in a far wing.
Find the copy room.
Undress.
Spring load the ditto machine.
Pour in the ink.
Turn back the handle,
and then let it fly.
Insert paper after paper,
trying to keep up,
with no regard for trees
or the frogs and other critters
that may live in them.
Let the papers fall into piles
ceiling to floor,
dripping with purple-blue,
blotted to make Rorschach blush.
Let the papers drip, drop, run
near disintegration.
Wet pulp stains hands.
Touch hands to face—
blue lips, blue cheeks.
Ink dribbles down—
blue neck, torso, genitals, knees, ankles.
Pop up to tiptoes so it
runs to the bottoms of feet.
Leave behind blue footprints
wherever you go.
Skin now paper.
Scent now stain.
Pulse now the unending
wheel, duplicating.
Years ago, I wrote some poems that followed a through line of “how to.” I revisited some and found this one I’d written after reading some of Hirsch’s works and thought revisiting the instructional poem would be an interesting endeavor for the Hands On prompt.
Christina M. Rau, The Yoga Poet, leads Meditate, Move, & Create workshops for various organizations worldwide. Her collections include How We Make Amends and the Elgin Award-winning Liberating The Astronauts. She moderates the Women’s Poetry Listserv and has served as Poet in Residence for Oceanside Library (NY) since 2020. During her downtime, she watches the Game Show Network.
http://www.christinamrau.com
