Today’s prompt is to write a rewritten in opposition poem.

At the Top or the Bottom
by ARHuelsenbeck
based on the poem “In the Middle” by Barbara Crooker

of a death that’s as simple as no one’s,
easily imbalanced, taking things one at a time.
The wood in Grandma’s fireplace
burns steadily, no need
to stoke it. The flue is closed,
yet the smoke alarm doesn’t blare.
One night I look in the door,
white winter, another, the leaves will soon rise,
as will a gray sky. Our parents are almost tiny,
our children here, it’s taken so long.
One night we’ll unlearn hate, 
between evening’s long bread
and morning’s quick dawning.
Frost from a popsicle melts.
Their heads separate,
the cat’s tail a baton flowing 6/8 time.
Lack of time was behind them, 
crawling up the mountain, grasping
their ankles, preventing them from
making progress; they put on
their Apple watches, jumping on 
the trampoline, somewhere between
shackles and the underworld, untangled
in conflict, all the time in the world.