Spotless as a Dalmatian

A poetic response to Michael Ondaatje's poem "Sweet like a Crow"

Your room is like a black hole, lacking a beginning
and an ending
Like walking into a dark, foggy graveyard, not knowing
what will pop out of the blue
Like a bursting volcano, the aftermath of a
tsunami, like a food fight that had gone totally wrong but
totally right at the same time
Like a sputter of glitter in a monochrome picture,
the rotten bunch of bananas that people
steer clear from, the fallen litter that nobody cleans up
Like Neverland or Narnia, unknown and unrealistic
Like a football locker that hundreds of
sweaty men have used, the feeling of stepping on dog poop,
the dreaded sound of the leader yelling "Charge!"
Like a trip to the Safari gone wrong, or like dropping a pin needle
in a hay stack; it will take ages to find anything,
the feeling of a hundred eyes staring at you
Like a million fountain pens exploding in mens' pockets, a thousand
hippos got diarrhea and had nowhere else to let it out but here
Like Tribulation was doomed upon the human race, like dozens of raccoons
going through the trash but couldn't find
what they were looking for, like the thought of cleaning the bathroom
slipped from Cinderella's mind way too many times
Like finding your child peeing their bed ten times in a night,
cooked Parmesan cheese, the eeriness of going into a haunted house at night alone,
as spotless as a dalmatian's body, as clean as the forgotten and "I'll clean
it out later" garage
Like having to look down and see the tiny buildings that once seemed tall
to prove that you aren't scared of heights, but you are
Like realizing that you're too short and cannot get the last cookie the easy way,
the godawful sight of the garbage dump-like room that I was stuck
cleaning because you were ill.

This is Just to Say

A poetic response to William Carlos Williams' poem "This is Just to Say"

I have taken

your shirt

that was in

your closet

it was

your favourite shirt

sorry

not giving 

because we

both realize that

you can't

wear it well

The Ice Cream Melting

A poetic response to William Carlos Williams' poem "The Red Wheelbarrow"

So much depends

upon

the ice cream

melting

down your chin

dripping

leaving your hands

sticky