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      November 6, 2023MarkKatherine Lo

      Not everything hard will break you, but it will
      probably leave a mark,
       
      like the scratch on the front bumper
      from a ladder propped against the garage wall,
       
      the one you didn’t even know you’d touched
      until it started moving. Even then
       
      a brief moment of bewilderment at this spontaneous
      wobble before your brain understood
       
      and your foot stomped the brake. That we don’t
      always feel the damage
       
      is a kind of grace, the reprieve of a door pushed
      against an overstuffed closet,
       
      solid restraint to the chaos waiting to fall
      on your head the minute you forget
       
      and pull it open. You need to deal with it,
      some might say, and they may be right. But first
       
      there’s laundry, and groceries, and teeth
      to floss. Some Saturday, after you’ve said goodbye
       
      to friends in some parking lot, you’ll head to your car
      and squat in the space
       
      and light you never have in the garage,
      and take a look. Long black scrape, white paint
       
      crimped at the edges. But not bad. Nothing worth
      the trouble of fixing.

      from #81 - Prompt Poems

      Katherine Lo

      “This poem came out of a conversation with a friend about the coping mechanisms we all have and how they help us move forward, even with some damage.”