Prompt: photo by Robert Doisenau: School Boys, 1956

Looking over, just to peek, to get an idea of someone else's thoughts, their ruminations. Is that cheating? Or is it inspiration? One time, in a gallery, in Oregon, on the coast, Astoria, I believe, I took a photo of a woman's painting and immediately the proprietor of the gallery came over and reprimanded me. Didi't I know these were copyrighted works? I was so embarrassed, I left.

This photograph caught a stolen moment of a schoolboy at his desk, pondering something, looking skyward, while his neighbor, ever so surreptitiously glances over, hoping not to be noticed, if only to glimpse a fragment, a scrap of inspiration...

Prompt: One thing I know for sure

One thing I know for sure is that it's almost impossible for me to start anything like a race, including this writing exercise which started with the bang of me pressing start on the timer portion of the alarm clock in my phone and suddenly the room became silent except for the turning of pages, the tap of a keyboard, the scratching of my pencil on the paper of this notebook. Outside a bird can be heard, maybe two backyards away. The pitcher of lemonade rests nearby, perfuming the air with a sharp sweetness. Should we have looked at the Doisenau photos for inspiration? They're all so beautiful, each worthy of at least one story, at least a thousand words. Maybe next time, I console myself. And then the dog next door barks and I am aware again that there are things to be done, writing to be written. The clock ticks off the seconds - I glance over to see 11:11 - we're not even half way through our prompt.

Today I am slow. I am racing to write this. I double back and erase again and again - it's two steps back for every one ahead. I am not cut out for racing. Erasing yes, racing, no. My mind is racing and my hand is erasing.

I'm thinking about completely irrelevant things: A yard sale from last summer, its trinkets sitting on a table in a kitchen waiting to be picked up and loved again. Anthropomorphizing is silly. I know, but I do believe things have lives of their own and these particular ones, resting for the last time in this pine wood paneled kitchen with frilly valences and cupboards surrounded by the curly-cue details of the 1950s aesthetic from whence they sprung, well, these nicknacks look confused. This is the only home they've ever known and now a stranger in an apron wielding an ipad with a cash register app is circling overhead, making deals.

So, apparently that's what I think about when under duress: lost and lonely trinkets at the mercy of an auctioneer, awaiting an unknown fate. I'll take this little elephant - that I know for sure.

Prompt: I am writing this for you

I am writing this for you under no duress, no obligation.

I am writing this for you on a day that began under cover of cloud, spring-like, silent, punctuated only by the coo of doves.

I am writing this for you as only I can do, on a day like today which is like no other.

I am writing this for you because words are so much more real on the page, than to say them out loud only to have them linger briefly in the air, suffuse, diffuse, transparent, like perfume, slowly dissipating, disappearing. Vanished.

I am writing this for you, with longing incomprehensible.

I am writing this for you, fingers gripping ever so tightly your pen. You left it here and I could not help myself. I tried to hold it the way I've seen you hold it: lightly, nonchalantly, callously, tossing off a grocery list, a note, a silly sketch.

I am writing this for you in supplication, as an offering, to give you an indication, a sign, a memento.

I am writing this for you in the hope that you may read it, some day, if you find it, hidden, sequestered, squirreled away in plain sight amongst the scraps of our lives.

I am writing this for you because I love you.

Prompt: Aimless Love (Billy Collins)

There are days that sneak up on me when everything from the wren calling outside my window to the little fluffs of dog hair congregating beneath the dining room table brings tears. On those days my tiny world, bathed in an ethereal light, sings the siren song of this one secret thing: life is short; love as much as you can, even when it seems impossible, ridiculous, counterproductive. At the sound of distant mowers suddenly muffling the birdsong, I wake from my reverie and call over to the dog, who lies waiting in a square of sunlight on the rug...

Prompt: Did you have a favorite

Did you have a favorite,
did you have a best,
did you have a loved, a beloved, a well worn, well kept, most adored, carefree, uncommon, idiosyncratic, absolutely, positively, unhesitatingly wonderful
person, place or thing?