I was browsing through old poems recently, and came across two written 17 years ago but in the same week, about life with my kids. I was 44 at the time. Katie had just turned 18 and Danny was 12. Richard was the fourth around the table.

We wrote collective poetry last night.
For Katie’s class in writing verse, we made
iambic phrases into lines of tight
schematic rhyme. We wrapped around and played
with what we found upon the table top
(the sauce and salsa, threads to tickle lips
or, twisted, tease the dog who wouldn’t stop
at tug-of-war for ice cream or for chips).

We built a silly sonnet. Everyone
selected common phrases as our theme,
and for an hour took a type of fun
that leads to laughter, learning and esteem
for language, woven, chosen word by word,
that fortifies our love of the absurd.