AWP Exquisite Corpse: Day Two

We asked visitors to Booth 1421 to participate in our exquisite corpse game! Visitors contributed one line to our evolving collaborative writing experiment. The one rule is that contributors can read only the line directly preceding theirs. Follow along at #bhreviewAWP and #AWP15, and on Twitter.

Read the results from Thursday’s bookfair.

Trying to snow this morning, though it’s spring.
White clumps with feathered edges drift down into my eyes,
the difficulty of living among construction of the soul
is that you never know whether death is coming or catcalling.
Snow in April means the hope of spring.
Sunshine in the rain washes away the clouds
with this moment in weather we step away
to the airline dedicated only to poems, not peanuts
because of the allergy that appeared contagious.
I’d be an even better writer and communicator if I used vowels!
But vowels are so much better whenever they are punctuated by consonants and spaces.
Consonants can clog up space, though, taking light away from stars and nebulas.
The light here
headache
not real
something else, somewhere a where that’s not here
in the weak light of the moon he found his way
into the world, the blue waters and warm murals of mermaids in Portugal
and then sparrows with their sudden tongues
dismantle the soft orange of the August dusk.
Soft-spun clouds drip molten threads
of burning chocolate
my mouth watered in anger.
And for a moment I plunged into a memory of my long-ago childhood.
I was enjoying breakfast at the Skylark when suddenly
I noticed that I could not taste it.
But I will never be able to forget the texture.
The taste of the pain, the smell of your grief.
Tears like pomegranate, like rubies
like any uncountable cluster of scarlet.