The January 16th prompt in The Daily Poet: Day-By-Day Prompts For Your Writing Practice, by Kelli Russell Agodon & Martha Silano, is to come up with a list of ten words each about oil and snow, then to alternate a word from the two lists in each line of a poem until all the words have been used. My snow words were granule, icy, angels, crystalline, blanket, powder, pack, flurry, blizzard, and flake; my oil words were fuel, golden, stain, fluid, smooth, slick, viscous, slip, flammable, and commodity.

Granules float in clusters in the cup
fuel for the drowsy morning just begun
insulation against the icy winter air
coated in golden light

No angels to be found this sunlit morning
stains on the pavement the only things left behind
the occasional crystalline reflection
fluid to my squinting eyes

My warm blanket calls me back to bed
always the smooth talker, don’t you know
laying on the charm like a fine powder
and me, a prisoner to that slick routine

I pack it in, and go back inside
to the viscous warmth of the baseboard heat
In a flurry, I put my thick socks back on
slip back between the blankets

There could be a blizzard out there, for all I care
the heat’s turned up to ‘flammable’
I’m going to flake out here for the day
busy is a commodity I can do without

Sleep, sweet sleep in this silent space
trusted to the man in the stars
melting away into slumbered bliss
to light the eternal flame

(16 January 2016)