Using a prompt from Poets & Writers, I wrote a poem using the N+7 form, conceived of by the French poets of the Oulipo movement. Basically you choose one of your own poems and replace each noun in that text with the noun occurring seven entries below it in your dictionary.

A Christmas gift parents understand fulfills cravings of those who think miracles exist.

It isn’t until
years later
that I allow
Fridays to be
rest days

Child size chairs line the halls
too small for your frame
you sink to the floor
your knees between your legs.

Always late,
his habit of washing hands
poking spots, plucking brows
took over clock watching
the second hand unnoticed
until the time to go
came and gone.

Two inches thick
it penetrates
nostrils, eyelashes,
sandwich lunches
and settles over
mismatched IKEA furniture
like a rough winter coat
a month before spring.

I put the X on the anniversary of your last day but it seems wrong to sully it. It makes it seem so final. The day speeds by as I bake to fill freezers and counter spaces. I start with Valentine Orange Cookies in misshapen cupids, heads snapping easily off into crumbles.