WHEN ELI TURNED TWO
by April Halprin Wayland
Before, as if he hadn’t heard,
my memo slowly fluttered down. The words
which bid him to obey
would float above his brain all day.
My doofus dog who chewed my shoes
so long ago (before he grew),
now hears when I command him,“Stay!”
and as my jaw drops—Eli stays.
Poetry Prompt: I’ve never had a big dog before. I’d never had a galumphing, doodle-brained mutt who smacks into a door at full speed; an adolescent canine who turns every day into Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Everyone at the dog park told me that a big dog calms down around the time he turns two…but I didn’t believe it. Oh, ye of little faith! On his second birthday, it was as if Eli walked through the door marked: Calm Dogs Only Beyond This Point. Amazing.
The pattern of a rhyming poem–its rhyme scheme-is written in a kind of secret agent poet’s code. In the poem above, the pattern of my quatrains is aabb, ccbb where each letter stands for the sound of the end rhyme.
It’s your turn. Play with rhyme schemes!