Today, I finished a seven-day long writing class through The National Writing Project.  It was exhausting, but fruitful.  One of my goals was to work on poetry and I thought I’d share one here:

The bucket

The hose wraps around the car

     like a snake fleeing sounds of summer.  

Daddy holds the end of it, filling the bucket, rinsing soap

     off every inch of metal.  

My job is a fat sponge in the blue bucket,

     sopping it up,

     reaching as high as I can to clean off fragments of dirt or anything else

     caking over the silver shine.  

As I plop the sponge back into the water,

     bubbles begin to foam,

     creating tiny prisms of color,

     mini rainbows nobody else can see.  

Somehow the soap, water, and sunlight create this world for my pleasure

     and I stop,

     staring for what feels like several minutes.

Without warning, Daddy is here,

     pointing the stream of water into the bucket,

     splashing water and soap everywhere,

     laughing, and

     erasing the magic in the bucket.  

Tears start to form in the corners of my eyes,

     but I know well enough to stop.