5 day forecast
Saturday Poem / Raisin
Share with others:
hurts like the grief of first grade --
red box pulled from the pantry
and stuffed in a paper bag,
zip of car-coat in the early dark
and a cold march to the bus.
Laces in tight bows, bag in your hand, that was it.
Sent without cause, sent with one bag
scraping the blue plastic pockets as you moved --
with nothing to keep you afloat
but the dark mean fruit, put there
by your mother's hands -- you remember them,
they were hard and warm. As your teeth break the skin
what weeps forth is fog and mud
and you remember the red-brick house
rooted upright in wet clay. You miss
the gray tobacco landscape
of your mother's breath, you miss sleep,
you will never trust the alphabet now
as it lists its frivolous phonic pleasures --
its ice cream MMM, its red Apple too sweet
from the start. And Mrs. Zwicky a gold doll,
Elise with her thick, smooth braids --
they are the mistaken country,
and you have only the shriveled pulp
smarting in your mouth
to give you back the bitter earth of what went wrong.
First Published June 16, 2012 12:00 am
