Lemonade & Vinegar

At the unripe age of three,
all I knew was father's face --
its mask crushed by a comet of loss. 
That empty spot in a king-sized bed.
He seemed so small beneath those sheets
without your curves to fill them out.
Glistened tears in panther darkness lit the room.
Sundays had a funny taste --
tart vinegar and pepper flakes 
when tongues expect sweet lemonade.
They ran like squirrels with tails removed.
All I knew of graves back then 
was a guppy or two floating on the grimy rim
of fish bowls we forgot about.
But you erased those little balls, 
flushed disappointment down the toilet 
as we slept. Put new wiggles in the jar.

I wanted to snatch you back from death --
a letter slipped in postal slots 
before the text had finished with bright diaries.
All this talk of angels I had never seen,
all the Catholic rosaries,
cue balls of their certainties
disappearing into black. 
Stamps of pain attached to Cancer
pinned to us like some corsage without a bud --
they gave you every right to leave,
but made our scrapbooks taverns
of injustices, scrolls of void 
and nests of straw without a bird.
We weren't prepared for hills 
we'd have to climb alone.
My sister grabbed the Revlon red,
wrote Mommy on the bathroom mirror.
God was too busy to read.
Pictures that we drew in school
had chairs and no one sitting there.

© Janet I. Buck

***First Published in The Paumanok Review, Spring 2002

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