30/30: Golden Shovel poem #30

source: Beneath a Surface, History Can Hide

 

Cigarette smoke and beery breath linger beneath

Bar lights bright at closing, a

Stop sign to drinkers floating on the surface

Of drunkenness. She wonders which history

She wants to remember tomorrow, whose shoes can

Lurk under her bed, or where she will hide.

 

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Here is how I am using Terrance Hayes’s Golden Shovel poem format, as proposed by the Sunday New York Times "At Home" section, for 30 Poems in 30 Days during National Poetry Month.

 

Take a newspaper headline that attracts you.

Use each word in the line as the end word for each line in your poem.

Keep the end words in order.

Describe the story that the headline is for.

The poem does not have to be about the same subject as the headline that creates the end words.