Between the Lines

PROMPT: Choose a poem you think will work well as a prompt. At the E. 38th St. IMCPL branch in late October 2011, we started with "Fire" by Joy Harjo from her book What Moon Drove Me to This? Cross out every other line (it doesn't matter whether you start with the first or second line) and write lines of your own to fit with the remaining original lines. Then, cross out the remaining lines of the original poem and write more lines of your own to go with those you already wrote so that what you end up with is a poem that's wholly yours. 


Here's what I wrote...

Between the Lines

No one hears
a voice unspoken.
Each person must walk into
the timbre of her own breath.
Every One must dance into
the beauty of her own resonance--
flirting, flitting from word to word to word
like lovers wrestling in the damp night.
A body must journey into its deepest throat
no matter what the cost. See--
the cancer cut from inside my neck
was not the end but a new start. My voice
goes on and on even as I sleep
like water rippling in moonlight.
My dreams, my pen become a tongue
for those weary of talk. I am become
a breeze that bristles dry autumn leaves
to ground. I mulch the earth's madness
with whatever laughter or tears
I launch into the darkness.