Day 2 of National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) 

Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt:

we challenge you to write a poem that directly addresses someone, and that includes a made-up word, an odd/unusual simile, a statement of “fact,” and something that seems out of place in time…

Herewith:

The Protestant

Are you going to the protest? I am.
Heard that before? That’s because I’ve said it before.
I mean it this time.
I’ll be the queen of protestation!
Thou thinkest I protesteth too mucheth?  Ha! 
And, no, when I said protestation I didn’t
mean prostration. 

But really. I’ve got it all figured out.
I’m making a sign, at my kitchen table
with the curtains drawn so the neighbors won’t see.
I’m sharing my opinions in big block letters,
though I’d rather just print them on an index card.
Maybe file them away in my mother’s old recipe box.
In the back with the newspaper clippings of obituaries
and the torn off corners of Christmas card envelopes
bearing old friends’ new addresses. 

I figure I’ll take the sign out to my car 
disguised in a trench coat like
an under cover bedbug.
Signs don’t wear trench coats? 
A dead giveaway, then.
Okay, I’ll just spirit it out of the house
under the cover of darkness,
like an insomniacal bedbug.

Of course I worry.
What if I get there and I don’t see anyone I know? 
What if I get there and someone I know sees me? 
You say my excuses are infinityesimal?
Tiny and of little consequence, but
they can go on forever.
[eye roll] Very funny.

I mean it this time.
I’m going to the protest.
Are you?