Oops, forgot to post Poem 29...

For today's prompt, I want you to title your poems "Never (blank)" with you filling in the blank with a word or phrase. Then, write a poem based off your title, which could be "Never look both ways when crossing the street" or "Never blush in public" or "Never ever" or "Never write a poem with the word never in the title." You get the idea, right?




Never Remix


It’s no coincidence she mistakes love
for a bufflehead mistakes the bufflehead
for a decoy set out in the lake by her ex-
boyfriend sophomore year. It’s not June,
but an anxious summer hat and a fast
breeze. She is playing cribbage
with herself and not considering
the future, the orangetip butterflies
that seem to believe the safest places
are on the wallflowers under the tires
of SUVs. Let’s tell her to stop repeating
never to the beetles, there are so many
choices of shell shape, but let her sing
no, no, no to the gray squirrel that arrived
by ferryboat to forest of chipmunks.
It’s not a coincidence she mistakes never
for maybe someday, there is possibility
in the caterpillars, moth or butterfly,
nightlight or candle flicker, she flutters
around the shoreline knowing the milfoil
is dangerous, but she almost enjoys
the hazard of a daily swim, how someone
becomes tangled, the surprise of that pulls
people under.