Two Writing Prompts After Todd Dillard #1: Write a poem that redeems some part of that summer, The one that bakes like a rusted weapon In a musty drawer of days. No need to make the hardest part Reek of varnish, nor tamp down the edges Of the violent verbs: the closeted heart Still shatters, Desire’s cry still tears Unanswered through the elm trees, The scorpion still stabs Its spiked klaxon in your limp Pubescent wrist and shoots off through a gold Grass gone windless and littered With ice cream wrappers. But while you’re at it, Convey how the heat Went blissfully missing One evening in August. How after you screamed I want to go home into the nurse’s phone The camp counselor assuaged you with talk of baseball, Eased your stung sense of dignity As the ice pack salved the swelling. Describe how you and your parents Stopped halfway back at a Cafe and General Store, Land of peanut shells on the floor And old soda logos on the walls And a little extra honey run over everything. #2: Write a shopping list for the end of the world.
M.E. Walker is a queer writer, performer, and educator from Texas. His work has appeared in Emerge Literary Journal, One Art, and Stone Circle Review. He can be found on Instagram @walkertexaswriter31 or on Twitter/BlueSky @texasnotranger.