Issue 5:
Soul
Janet I. Buck
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Edible Time
You're near that age
where death's a fact
as simple as a climate change
or graying hair, first the tarnish
then the bleach you've dyed
all spectrums lent to Autumn leaves.
Morning paper bleeds on palms--
another friend has "services"
you won't discuss and won't attend.
You know you need a hearing aid
but love the silence more than noise.
Slingshot jokes, firm dismissal,
stand like painted totem poles
we dance around in vagaries
when topics creak their open doors.
The final ax above the rooster's
spindly neck and ruffled feathers on the block.
As much a part of muggy sky--
mosquitoes in a jungle's net.
Things I drop upon a page don't rectify
but illustrate unwillingness to face
the tar-less, rocky road
of olding's fraught menagerie.
It's time to talk of selling toys you cannot drive,
of building rooms upon our house
where you can spend your final years.
Coddled, duly coveted in patchwork quilt
of wrinkles stitched around earned scars.
To let your children be the gods
and feathers of an angel's broach
that you have flown through freezing rain.
To let your children pass you
mounds of whipped potatoes,
recipes of edible time
with butter in their cavities.
Let them be the trump you've been
in draws of disappointed cards.
~Janet I. Buck
Janet teaches writing and literature at the college level. Her poetry appears in hundreds of publications online and in print. Visit her website for information on her new CD, books, readings, and appearances. Email.
© 2000 by Janet I. Buck. All Rights Reserved.
© 2000-2002 by Cayuse Press. All Rights Reserved.
This page updated April 23, 2002.