IMPOSSIBLE POEM

GUINEA PIGS

When my uncle was a teenager, 
on a dare, he hopped the zoo fence 
and swiped a lone guinea pig. 
He stuck it in his jeans jacket
and brought it home. Aww,
it had babies, so he built a hutch
for his baker's dozen of guinea pigs—
Within months they had litters—and so on. 
He tried to give them away. No such luck.
Picture my uncle trying to thumb a ride
across the Golden Gate Bridge to West Marin
with dozens of guinea pigs wheeking
and chuffing and piddling while chewing
their way to freedom from cardboard boxes.
They ate him out of house & home.
In fact, there were so many guinea pigs, 
that they ate their feces, then they ate 
each other. Too bad he didn't know
any Incas. Roast quwi tastes like chicken.
So one night, my uncle hitchiked out 
to the zoo, climbed back over the fence
laden with boxes of squealing guinea pigs.
The zookeeper must have scratched his head
to find hundreds of guinea pigs in the pen
that weren't there the day before.

4/17/13


(So here's the spillover—yesterday's post leaked over into today's attempt, but Molly's stealing with permission informed the piece. Or maybe it's a volta. Now, what to name it?)
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PAD: write an express poem. This might be about an express train or express delivery. It might have something to do with expression painting. However you come at this prompt, be sure to express yourself.

NaPoWriMo: Early on in the month, I asked you to write a valediction — a poem of farewell. Today, let’s try the opposite, and write poems of greeting. There’s lots of things you could greet. The spring? Your new stapler? A favorite classmate? An addition to the menu at your local cafe? The subject’s up to you — now get out there and say “hello!”

Molly Fisk: April 17 prompt: Stealing with permission.

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Use volta (a poetic turn) in a poem of any length (it can be a sonnet, or not). For more about the volta: http://bit.ly/IoiYLd.

volta, ( Italian: “turn”) the turn in thought in a sonnet that is often indicated by such initial words as But, Yet, or And yet.