Itinerary

[Wjames]

Watermelon juice breakfast
insisted on a day at the beach
with your love.

Unpacking wet towels, the zebra mussel cut
shifts your weight to the left foot
as sunburn peels your neck.

When she walks in the room,
headache corkscrews the wine
and you pour a glass alone.

[brynmawr1]

Watermelon juice breakfast
insisted on a day at the beach  Love the 'watermelon juice' as the instigator
with your love.               not sure about this line.  for me is discordant with the feel of the rest.  maybe it's the 'your' which seems to refer to the reader

Unpacking wet towels, the zebra mussel cut  wet towels is a nice indication of the time shift and I like the detail of the cut on the foot.
shifts your weight to the left foot
as sunburn peels your neck.   consider tightening this line by cutting 'as' and use peeling.  I'm waffling on it myself.

When she walks in the room,
headache corkscrews the wine   This is my favorite line.  Super clever!
and you pour a glass alone.       and a nice reveal at the end.

Hi WJ,
I enjoyed this very much.  Very relatable, a nice vignette of how relationships aren't always what we want.  Lots of nice subtle detail to clue the reader along with some nice original wording.  My only real sticking point was L3 in S1.  Like I said, just doesn't seem to fit.  Also, I think L1 S3 could be better, maybe less pedestrian (see what I did there?).  Of course I have no suggestions!
Thanks for the read,
bryn
Of course while I'm writing this one of my cats is loving up on me and being very annoying.  Life is metaphor for life.

[Miley]

Watermelon juice breakfast
insisted on a day at the beach
with your love.

Unpacking wet towels, the zebra mussel cut Had to google "zebra mussel cut" and then this stanza became incredibly clearer for me. Otherwise I would never associate zebra with the beach ha. though some how zebra resonates with sunburn, not only because a sunburnt zebra is a popular joke punchline, but because of the shape of "peels" relative to the zebra stripes. Also something between the zebra stripes and the watermelon stripes. Zebra is just a strange word, and such an exotic looking animal.
shifts your weight to the left foot
as sunburn peels your neck.

When she walks in the room,
headache corkscrews the wine  I see a sort of symmetry here wherein each stanza the inanimate thing gets like... anthropomorphized (not the right word but hopefully you know what i mean) via its verb, breakfast insisted, cut shifts, headache corkscrews. This last one is my favorite but also the one that took my the longest to wrap my head around, as in I had to read it twice!
and you pour a glass alone.

My impression on this poem is of a beach day amongst 2 "lovers" perhaps a holiday. The last line reveals that there is trouble at paradise, though the middle stanza hints at it. Sometimes on holidays there are all these small inconveniences/irritants in this case that can make a sour mood soure, The fact that your supposed to be having fun makes the miserable day even worst!
Sorry I dont have much critical to add. I guess my inclination would be to switch it from "your" to "my" but that's just my intuition on it. Maybe  "insisted" in the first line works better in present tense as "insist"  

The line "with your love" is maybe a little flat comparatively but then it comes across as more of a workhorse line..

[Wjames]

Thanks for reading this one Miley and Bryn - I agree 'with your love' is the weakest part, it only serves to set up that it is involving a relationship, it doesn't add anything beyond that.

I've tried coming up with something better, but everything I've thought of so far is pretty clunky - I don't want to forget about this before I fix it, though, because it is one that could easily be improved if I think about it.

[crow]

#
Please utilize grammar and syntax in a riddling poem. Otherwise, the best interpretation will be, this is sloppy. Here, “headache corkscrews the wine and you” is enough to make me not want to consider if she and you are the same person. It should be “the wine, and you pour a glass alone.”

Also, please post the title of the poem above the body in your post.

Here, the title changes everything. So, what looks like a goofy poem about a vacation looks very different when you add the title. This poem:

—————
Watermelon juice breakfast
insisted on a day at the beach
with your love.

Unpacking wet towels, the zebra mussel cut
shifts your weight to the left foot
as sunburn peels your neck.

When she walks in the room,
headache corkscrews the wine
and you pour a glass alone.
—————

Becomes this poem:

—————
Itinerary

Watermelon juice breakfast
insisted on a day at the beach
with your love.

Unpacking wet towels, the zebra mussel cut
shifts your weight to the left foot
as sunburn peels your neck.

When she walks in the room,
headache corkscrews the wine
and you pour a glass alone.
—————
These two poems are very different.

Finally, zebra mussels have thin shells. I appreciate the black-white imagery, but a zebra mussel can’t cut your foot. So, “zebra mussel cut” is either a miscue or an intended inclusion meant to let us know the subject of this poem is a liar.

In sum, this is either a bad riddling poem full of miscues, or an excellent riddling poem with a few minor errors.

I can’t complete the critique until I know which it is.


A note to commenters: when nouns are almost the same, it means something. Watermelon juice and wine should have been noted as opposites already.

[brynmawr1]

Hmmmm...facts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxoq5Xm8yuk

[crow]

It brynmawr1—I just had never heard of it. Zebra mussels are like cornflakes.

But are we missing something here? This poem
Is aesthetically dense. Is it powerful?

---

“headache corkscrews the wine
and you pour a glass alone”

This is interesting, yeah? You have a nonsensical line —a headache can’t corkscrew and wine can’t be corkscrewed—followed by a line describing a lexical phrase that’s obvious but peculiar. Like, why not, “you drink a glass alone”?

I think we’re missing something,