“Painter’s Tape”

By Thomas Page

I am student teaching a senior level class in Washington, DC. They have to write some poems on these prompts. I decided to try all 30 of them. However, I will not say what the prompt was but what its number was.

Prompt #30

Painter’s tape lines the room I wrote all of these in

Listing the requirements of the class held within it.

There seems to be tape all over these poems we read

Because everything has to make sense in rhythm.

The paint, greening at the corners, begins to peel

With the yellow walls showing its vibrancy.

I can’t say who to think of when it comes to it all

Regarding the lines of rhymed dialogue.

Maybe Bede for remembering his own

Or Shakespeare for making his own

Or Gray for eulogizing his own

Or maybe Collins for parodying his own.

I can’t know whether the tape will hold

These attempts at language together.

Maybe I can hold on like something better

That may signal something beyond what it all means in retrospect

Or maybe I’m rambling and fall like a laminated paper

Because I don’t know.