As was previously mentioned on this website, I love a good poetry prompt for all the different aspects of my life it can show me. It brings once hidden things about the environment to light. The brain is a powerful machine that will work tirelessly to pull details from the past and present for the task of poems.

I have always loved April for several reasons: new buds on the trees, Starlings in the yard, birdsong, and my mother. When she passed away, poetry month became a dark time for me. Her birthday was April 1st and so for the last six years my poems have been funeral dirges, if I’m honest.

This year I made the distinct decision that I wasn’t going to right another death poem. This year I opened up my palm and let her fly away because I am tired of missing all the things I love about spring. Soon the lilacs will be in bloom and I will be in a fragrant heaven.

Last year, I witnessed a fellow writer’s journey through poetry month. Though I had read and published Jason Huskey’s work before, I didn’t get the full appreciation for his style and the distinct beauty nestled among his lines until poetry month the year before. This year, I am following his prompts for the month to see what is revealed to me in poems. I may share one here from time to time.

I Can’t Stop the Ringing in My Ears

The alley is blanketed in night mist
so heavy it clings to the tiny hairs
on my face, reconstituting
all the tears I’ve ever shed.

Lines blur with groundlessness, a parallel
universe plays out in the haloed street lamps
of past drunken Friday nights when we
stumbled home in fits of laughter.

Secretly our love was dying,
kept alive by the pulsing
of false dreams and manipulation.

Back inside the warmth of a home
we built together, my fingers soberly
stitch flowers in Frida Khalo’s hair
and I dream of what it means to be in love.

Aleathia Drehmer 2020
4/3 sobriety