Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun rides again.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Gemini Down




Little girl in the grocery store


Cuter than a peach


On a checkered cloth


In a basket,




Can't find her Mom.




Canned peas loom.


Aisles stretch into infinity.


Strangers bustle by, ten feet tall and steelier than automobiles.




This is when the heart constricts


The skin prickles, and


Tears flow.




Standing at the end of the row,


I can see that Mom is only


One aisle away


Pricing cake mix


For a treat later.




But to that little girl,


She may as well have been


Teleported to the Kamchatkan Peninsula,


Or launched on a space probe,


Shrinking tinier by the nanosecond,


Never to be heard from again.




To me, Mom looks kind,


Her hair is soft,


Her arms sweet solace,


And her voice something that I remember from happiness that I lost.




Love may be


One aisle over,


And love may lie


On a frozen moon of Jupiter...




This is when my heart constricts,


My skin prickles, and


Tears begin to flow.




I sink down on the dirty checkered floor


Of the Food Land store,


Throw my head back and howl,


And everyone,


Even the lost little girl,


Stop what they're doing


To stare.


_______












13 comments:

  1. A thoughtful, compassionate poem.

    Sometimes we're lost little girls ourselves.

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  2. now that's empathy, heee heee heee. nice one!

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  3. Excellent.

    We all have our toddler moments.

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  4. I love it! You captured the longing for lost comfort and a child's fears. And the song that's playing is really pretty too. (Ocarina).

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  5. Ah, lovely and emotional, this one. Everyone's got lost at least once in their childhood, I guess. But, I could connect this one to the current complexities of life. You get lost looking for them or dodging them. Nicely written!!! Keep them coming!!!

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  6. There are many different ways of being lost, and I relate to one way in particular. As a child I often woke up in the middle of the night and my parents weren't there. I'd scream and cry and watch the curtains blowing in my open bedroom window and no one ever came. I can relate to the petrified feeling of this lost little girl, and your reaction. Brilliant; you go girl.

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  7. Mom looks kind
    until she tears away from the cake mix
    and sees no child.
    Panic turns her
    wild-eyed and harsh.
    Fortunately, no one notices
    due to the chick howling one aisle over.

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  8. That lost child feeling is really one that grips every mother.

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  9. Oh wow, and I think we have all witnessed this one in person, I know i have:)

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  10. A woman fainted in the frozen food aisle once, heat-stroke I think.

    It think it was me.

    ReplyDelete

Spirit, what do you wish to tell us?