Cherry
At the conclusion of a cold, dark winter,
And a wet spring,
In the produce section
Sit mealy apples, ragged oranges
Sadly waiting for purchase
And then-
there are miles of them.
The mouths of the plastic zip lock bags
heavy duty,
Bursting with the fruit of a tree
From Washington State.
Black/ red and overpriced.
Cherry season doesn’t come,
It explodes.
My hand shakes with the weight
As I lift the bag onto the conveyor.
I tell the cashier, when she scoffs
At the fifteen dollar ring-up
I’d pay a million a pound
If I had to.
The first bite, cold and hard from the fridge,
The puncture.
The firm skin between my front teeth,
The unexpected honey of the first pick,
Eruption!
I roll my eyes
And say,
“Oh. My. God”
Every. Single.Time.
You laugh, never tired of hearing me
In ecstasy,
No matter what the reason.
There, in a handful, is all of my joy.
And the pits are part of the fun.
I roll them around systematically
In my mouth
Wasting no meat,
Standing over a garbage can
That smells faintly of rotting vegetables
Spitting them out eventually.
We all move on
From the things that get in the way
Of sweetness.
And it comes too quickly,
The end of it all.
You laugh, never tired of hearing me
In ecstasy,
No matter what the reason.
There, in a handful, is all of my joy.
And the pits are part of the fun.
I roll them around systematically
In my mouth
Wasting no meat,
Standing over a garbage can
That smells faintly of rotting vegetables
Spitting them out eventually.
We all move on
From the things that get in the way
Of sweetness.
And it comes too quickly,
The end of it all.
Fable
I’m running out of stories about him.
That feels like the worst thing
you can say about someone.
Such a short time collect them.
We’d see each other on the weekends.
Raised children at
each other’s homes.
And when you die young, and in such a way
that the mystery becomes the explanation.That’s what happens.
You become a fable.
The last line,
the most important thing in the world.
I recall now, glimpses of the day
but I could be remembering a reflection.
A little backward and confusing,
I still try to match my movements with the image.
What I told the officer, that
jangled and clumped his way into the living room,
still fresh in the terror;
Is that what happened?
Is it just the plot of the movie
I watched about the doting father
living a secret life
who disappeared one morning after
telling his wife he loved her?
The lessons learned:
don’t have money problems,
don’t have a marriage marred with strife,
don’t be too eager, don’t be too aloof.
What you’ve hid in your terror,
their fuel,
and to explain in the perfect words, your total innocence
Is all part of the total iviseration of the truth you believed.
Little red riding hood
her big trusting eyes.
The grandmother.
The Wolf
with his big fucking teeth..
So here is the last story:
They found him a day later
a corn field, shot in the head,
in the last desperate days of a wet, cold autumn,
the leaves so yellow, they glowed.
Twisting and twirling down,
with the breeze,
loosed from their mother
by the heavy cold rain drops; some were found in his hair.
No gun, no suspects; accept him.
Nine years later,
I think two things aloud:
Thank God they found him
and
What an odd thing to say.
Bionote
I’m running out of stories about him.
That feels like the worst thing
you can say about someone.
Such a short time collect them.
We’d see each other on the weekends.
Raised children at
each other’s homes.
And when you die young, and in such a way
that the mystery becomes the explanation.That’s what happens.
You become a fable.
The last line,
the most important thing in the world.
I recall now, glimpses of the day
but I could be remembering a reflection.
A little backward and confusing,
I still try to match my movements with the image.
What I told the officer, that
jangled and clumped his way into the living room,
still fresh in the terror;
Is that what happened?
Is it just the plot of the movie
I watched about the doting father
living a secret life
who disappeared one morning after
telling his wife he loved her?
The lessons learned:
don’t have money problems,
don’t have a marriage marred with strife,
don’t be too eager, don’t be too aloof.
What you’ve hid in your terror,
their fuel,
and to explain in the perfect words, your total innocence
Is all part of the total iviseration of the truth you believed.
Little red riding hood
her big trusting eyes.
The grandmother.
The Wolf
with his big fucking teeth..
So here is the last story:
They found him a day later
a corn field, shot in the head,
in the last desperate days of a wet, cold autumn,
the leaves so yellow, they glowed.
Twisting and twirling down,
with the breeze,
loosed from their mother
by the heavy cold rain drops; some were found in his hair.
No gun, no suspects; accept him.
Nine years later,
I think two things aloud:
Thank God they found him
and
What an odd thing to say.
Bionote
Kellie Scott-Reed songwriter, writer and AEIC of Roi Faineant Press. In spite of her cheerful disposition, she is fascinated with the dark side of humanity, and most of her written work is an investigation into her shadowy side.Her work can be found in Synchronized Chaos, Eratio Post Modern Poetry, Roi Faineant Press, music reviews at Punk Noir Magazine, and a piece in the anthology from OutCast/Anxiety presses, and Bullshit Lit in February 2023. Her songs can be found on iTunes and Spotify, under the band name Fivehead. The press can be located at roifaineantpress.com, where she conducts interviews with authors from all across the world.
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