Sheila Bair wears the Poet-of-the-Week’s crown for the W3 Poetry Prompt #164, daring us to craft a quadrille—a pint-sized poem with exactly 44 words—on what lingers after a loss.
Click below to explore the prompt’s brief.
Sheila’s prompt guidelines
Lately, I’ve been deeply immersed in the care of my 95-year-old mother, who lives with dementia. Each visit seems to mark another quiet disappearance—of a memory, a name, a physical ability. It’s a slow unraveling, and I know I’m not alone in feeling that ours is so often a life of loss.
And yet… there are things that remain.
That’s what I invite you to write about this week: what remains. It might be something tangible—a physical object recovered from ruin. Or something intangible: the loyalty of a lifelong friend, or a memory that somehow outlasts the forgetting.
Loss may be arbitrary, but what remains often feels distilled—essential.
For this prompt, let’s shape our reflections into a quadrille—a 44-word poem with no required rhyme or meter. This unique form was originally created at the d’Verse Poets Pub, where poets gather weekly to distill thought and feeling into brief, potent verse.
So, what remains, for you?
I hope you enjoy my take on Sheila’s prompt—a quadrille of exactly 44 words, titled Grandad’s Coat.
Grandad’s Coat
Rain hammered down—
if sayings were true—
there’d be cats and dogs flooding the street.
Grandma said, “Take Grandad’s coat.”
Still on its hook…
still smelled of him.
I pulled the collar close,
slipped my hands into his pockets—
and found his old pipe.
—Lesley Scoble, June 2025
I turned my quadrille into a song!
You can also listen to it here.
THANKS
My gratitude to David of the Skeptics Kaddish for hosting his motivational weekly poetry prompts.
My thanks to Sheila, the poet of the week, for her inspiring prompt.
And last but not least—thank you for taking the time to read my poem.
LesleyScoble.com 
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