Smacking of
produce-sticker bindi's on
eight-year old foreheads
the wall of stickers adhered
to file cabinet mammoths
his office
it's not the one
I remember
as a child
drawing for hours
colored permanent markers
the intense smell
telling myself I was
hardcore badass
at 11
finding mold gardens
in Dad's coffeepot
showing him
'eeee'
He wasn't aware
that growth is everywhere
on the station
on the prairie
where I'd rather be
Grandpa says to me
"You tell your Dad,"
meaning 'come out and see me'
and I do and I don't,
I wish I'd been more adamant
especially at the end
I could have cooked for you
could have spent
more time with love
that was instead given
to unveiling suspicion
a partner who'd be riven
from me in two years
At two years, I put my feet
in Grandpa's boots
Mom said 'so sweet'
and there's a photo
that will last longer
than any of us.
The poppies in her garden
the snake made her abandon
who could ever forget that scream?
and her subsequent hesitation
I don't think we played outside
for weeks at a time
and after, not without
her lifting us like the ground
was hot lava,
the color of poppies
which I connected
with my Poppy
married to Nanny
father of Mom
everything had to rhyme
or match
and sometimes that got me
into trouble
what rhymes with monkey?
Don't say that,
Grandpa got angry.
I was so scared,
what did I do wrong?
Why couldn't I say it?
I hardly dared breathe,
in Dad's truck
bouncing over hills
of grass
and fields of berries.
Grandpa was Santa,
after all,
as I said in the eulogy
making his hometown laugh.
After, they said to me,
"We liked that part,
about him being Santa."
Of course they did.
He instituted the town library.
What could be a better gift,
for every day of every year to come,
other than Christmas.
And I'm most grateful for fruit,
without it I wouldn't be alive.
More in common with a pirate
than I thought originally,
once I began to help Dad at work
and really see
where his living comes from.
Produce stickers don't just appear
on plants grown in the field.
So I don't know where all these ones came from,
diverse and multiple,
here for who knows how long,
a sense of the infinite
as if the scientists
collect and analyze
the colors and the texts
between eight-year-old eyes.
