Delicious
for Charlie Bucket
Life seems cruel after school reduced priced lunch —
bologna, gruel, day old bread munched the way
you hope someday to taste chocolate crunch
bar — not nibbled, wasted on an unbirthday.
Life could be delicious everyday. Pause
a moment, wrought iron gate, molecules
of chocolate permeate nostrils that cause
base belly groans unsatisfied when you
get home — cabbage supper boiled, rations spare.
Dessert is stories seven share. Invent
confections. Hope is chocolate in the air;
you can smell it everywhere — torment
to those who have forgotten its rich taste,
a torture manufactured in this place.
Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Best of the Net & Rhysling nominated sonnet stalker. Her sonnets have stalked journals like Glass, Yes, Five:2:One, Luna Luna and more. She is the author of sixteen books of poetry including Pink Plastic House (Maverick Duck Press), Crow Carriage (The Hedgehog Poetry Press), Flutter: Southern Gothic Fever Dream (TwistiT Press), The Meadow (APEP Publications) and Golden Ticket forthcoming from Roaring Junior Press. She is the founder of Pink Plastic House a tiny journal and co-founder of Performance Anxiety, an online poetry reading series. Follow her on Twitter: (@lolaandjolie) and her website kristingarth.com.
Other Works
No Man’s Land
by Camille Ferguson
... In my favorite dream we sit in citrus, / an actual grapefruit sky ...
cactus bush
by Cassandra Eddington
... You were hanging upside down on a cactus bush, / crucified, your skin sticky red, / your head cradled by thorns ...