Day 4 - Once Upon a ...

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Once Upon a (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: “Once Upon a Time,” “Once Upon a Pedestal,” or “Once Upon a Diet.” As usual, have fun with it.


Once Upon

my table
was a book
I have since forgotten

and in that book
some writing,
a phrase without break or comma, 
that turned
like on a lathe

and carved 
into my mind
- a shape, an echo, a landscape
treasured into sympathetic sleep
and into waking
 - not alone

somehow

how

a phrase I recognized
as not my own
but from a soul

I'd never meet 


the writer
might be dead now
might be heavy and drinking milk
might be shopping or recovering
or ash
might be petting a loyal dog

and wondering
if her life of turning words
- of punctuating
her own way 
had meaning
echoed
mattered