It’s been a hard day today. If you’ve been following my posts on Facebook or on my garden blog about Lily, the hummingbird who built a nest in our backyard, you know what I mean. If not, here’s

So I’m pulling out an easy card and am suggesting that we do a five senses poem, like we did on Kick the Poetry Can’ts #1

The word I’m choosing for this one is GOODBYE.

As always, I start with a list. What does goodbye sound like? Taste like? Smell like? Feel like? Look like? Here’s my brainstorm.

sounds like the closing of a door, silence
the moment of a hold after a note is played

tastes like peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth
something that makes you want to rinse your mouth out
like mud

smells like something burning
something that makes you want to hold your nose
garbage when the bag breaks

feels like you’re riding up in the elevator and the cord breaks
drowning
you can’t catch your breath

looks like gray mist covering anything that was beautiful
ashes
a shut door, a closed gate, the blinds being lowered
an empty place at the table

And here’s my first draft of a  poem.

Goodbye sounds like
the last note of the trumpet frozen
in time
in my mind
silence shuts the door
on what use to be.

It fills my mouth with mud
stuck to the roof of my mouth
grit between my teeth
I can’t floss it away
I can’t rinse it out it
sits
settles
festers

stinky smells slither
up through my nostrils
down to my toes
out of my pores
goodbye explodes like a busted bag of garbage
covering me until I feel like I’m drowning
can’t catch my breath
can’t face that empty place
can’t believe
after all this time
goodbye wins again

ashes, ashes
we all fall down

–Susan Taylor Brown, all rights reserved

Your turn. Try your hand at a five senses poem around the word “goodbye.”