The titles were given at the beginning of the challenge. Most people, to my dismay, found only light verse inspired by the titles. I’m not good at developing challenges.

Muhammad Ali Entered My Dream Just to Say Hello

Or maybe to shake my hand, or to shake
his hand, I can’t remember now. Sleep

bunched up at the end like a sheet,
and we could slide down it to the knots

dangling in the limby trees. He came in,
said he’d come in again, said

to wait for that entrance breath all caught up
and act surprised. It’s you. Yes, it’s me.

I am who I have been. And his hands shook
and mine shook, and we shook hands again?

I woke with a sore wrist, shook it
out like the laundry. Now he leaves me alone.

***

I Have Been to the Mountain

An online form asks for the highest
point you’ve ever stood, higher than
the dangerous tippy top of the ladder

you shouldn’t have leant on the other
ladder you shouldn’t have leant on old
siding and ignoring the do not stand

and you wonder why it’s a step
if you can’t stand on it, not made of knives
or cellophane. But what’s the highest

point in the country, the world, the highest
point you’ve braced your toes against
and reached out with a paintbrush toward

the soft splatter of a cloud just get that last
faint smudge of color hidden beneath
a new coat, your shirt with its last

faint splatter of spaghetti sauce or sweat
hidden beneath a new coat riding up a size
too small. What is the point?

***

Patent #10293954465

It means open. The cardiologists
run wires from groin to heart and make a note
that the LAD is patent, the lad lay
drowsy and patient and soft in Merck’s
time-released arms. They dig

up buried treasure in our veins, the way
our bodies scar builds a map for each
new drug and here, this one will make
you live, this one will make you thin,
this one will kill you, we won’t notice

anything. A pencil across the blank
sheet underneath shows everything
you ever wrote. They have the notebook.
We won’t notice anything at all.