Day Two

"Our (optional) prompt for the day takes a leaf from Schuyler’s book, as it were, and asks you to write a poem about a specific place —  a particular house or store or school or office. Try to incorporate concrete details, like street names, distances (“three and a half blocks from the post office”), the types of trees or flowers, the color of the shirts on the people you remember there. Little details like this can really help the reader imagine not only the place, but its mood – and can take your poem to weird and wild places."


South 34

From three floors up, the entire campus is visible.
A sea of magnolias and a stripe of brick,
to divide the Green into dog yoga and Spikeball.
Three tall windows let the light stream in,
or the 6 AM howls of jocks on the hoof. 

The floor slopes to meet the radiator
which awoogas at winter's drafts. Stink bugs enter
through gaps between screen and warp. 
Painted-shut hopper windows shout "institution";
Our hallways are never dark. 

After a break this long,
our showers run rust-red. 100 years
will make its mark on a building.
It would take 54 minutes to drive there
(if I were allowed to drive there).