Poem in a Pinch

In my English classes, I am working with my students to help them write a narrative poem. One of the most important things that I emphasize to my students is that a narrative poem needs only to tell a story of some kind, not necessarily a story about some monumental moment in your life. Most of my kids feed me the "nothing has ever happened to me" line to which I have to prove that some of the greatest poems are about the most random happenings of someone's life that simply made an impact for whatever reason.

In order to prove my point that poems can be about random stuff, I allow each of my three classes to decide on a topic that I am required to write a poem about in front of the class. It's a fun activity because my students are generally amazed that I can write much of anything with 30 pairs of eyes staring at me and giggling behind my back. It's requires me to think on my feet, and I always approach it as a game which I must win because I always beat my students at everything. Always.

Today I wrote three poems. My first poem topic was muddin' (yah, I know I teach in Lavaca). My second hour class requested I write about dogs, which was super easy by the way and made a great little poem that I will present to Finny and Staley on their second birthday. My forth hour class came up with a more difficult topic. Some of my more clever boys worked really hard to think of a topic that they deemed impossible to write an entire poem about. They asked me to write about washing dishes. At first I was a little taken aback. I took about 30 seconds to brainstorm and went crazy on my poem about dish washing. As I stood in front of all of my kids, a poem just sort of fell out of me. The kids didn't even have time to make fun of the words I was writing. After the fact, I stood back and read it and realized it's probably pretty indicative of my last year of life. It's a poem that is very closely about an actual experience I once had. I thought I would share.

The scalding water ambushes the mixing bowl; overcomes my hands.
Jars me back to my new reality.
Dish washing will never be the same.
Wives wash dishes for husbands and children.
Will I always be a wife?
Ever a mother?
He does his part; dish dryer.
Crisp, clean towel squeaking across our new bowl.
Why would any two people need so many bowls?
Unopened gifts, fluffy white bows, mountains of paper;
Well-wishes for a life neither of us predicted.
Scalding turns to temperate--I turn the water off.

Needless to say, my students were a little freaked out by the poem. They had already heard about my previous classes with poems about muddin' and puppies. All of the sudden I had a poem about a huge transition in my life. It was funny to see their reaction. They all analyzed it to mean that I hate Cody and I want a divorce. I was just glad they finally read something and tried to find a meaning beyond a surface level reading. This is my first official poem to post. Get some!