Been thinking all week on a prompt from Lisa this past Monday, a new quadrille idea (dVerse 44 word poem) to include, this time around, the word “coax” and I really just had nothin’.
But then when I got home tonight I gave it another thought and suddenly remembered something that I had written quite a number of years ago (30 plus now) but could never find the copy of over all that time and so many moves, but something that had gotten a compliment, back then, from a well known, well published local poet and professor who frequented the cigar shop my fiancé managed and who agreed to take a moment to read after I convinced Danielle to ask him the big ask, if he would be so kind.
Now, I still have never found that copy but tonight some of it came to me, including the lead in of the title (I always remember that) so I thought to revisit and rework it then as best I could and it was a short bit, certainly one that could fit a quadrille.
So, my altered version (including “coax” replacing “feel” and meeting a 44) but still there in spirit and pretty close, I think, to the original.
The compliment from him, by the way, written in pencil at the bottom of the poem? He said he thought that it was complete.
That was pretty big.
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First
A girl leaned older
Outside the store
holding up a wall with a bent knee left foot
and a cigarette with a right hand lilt
and a waking sudden me
with both
through a smoke clouds glance
coaxing me to something
I didn’t know
Frankenberry's Attic 
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