and that’s only the beginning.
I hear other junk food is at risk:
brownies, pastries, name it,
they’re removing it, the only chance
fifth graders have at happiness.
The only thing I looked forward to
was chocolate milk, especially after
getting yelled at by Miss Paniotoo.
I once poured a carton over her “in”
box, watched the ink bleed down
the equation-filled pages, blurring
the names of my classmates,
never told anyone, not even Donna Nagy,
and now they’re taking it off the menu.
What will our kids be forced to do?
Will they devour each other?
Eat one another’s faces, run across
the handball court sword fighting
with dry straws, wasted with desire?
Word just in they’re even removing
strawberry milk. We never had that.
I’m sure it didn’t smell like the chocolate:
a little sour like yesterday’s dessert.
We had to drink it before it turned,
when it was still cold enough
that even our mittens couldn’t protect us.
Tag: Kim Dower
“There Will Be Things You Do” by Kim Dower
you won’t know why.
Maybe waiting to tie
your shoelaces
until everything else
is in place.
Could be you’ll slide
your egg yolks aside
eat every bit of bacon,
toast, whites while the forsaken
yellow orbs stare at you
from the side pocket
of your empty plate.
People will ask
why do you save
your yolks for last
and you won’t know—
won’t recall
the cousin from the south
came to visit one summer
ate his eggs so odd
your family said
stuck with you
like the way
you love to be kissed
on the back of your neck
can vaguely recollect
your mother’s kisses
after your bath
too gentle for memory.
There will be things you do
you won’t know why
like the way you look
up at the sky
when anxious or blue
it’s what your father
used to do
every family trip
when nothing else
was right
except those clouds
moving north by northwest
through the night
he showed you
what pilots knew:
factors for safe flying
are visibility
and how low
and mean the clouds are.
“There Will Be Things You Do” by Kim Dower from Last Train to the Missing Planet. © Red Hen Press, 2016.
* Thank you, Michelle T., for the recommendation. ❤
“Bottled Water” by Kim Dower
I go to the corner liquor store
for a bottle of water, middle
of a hectic day, must get out
of the office, stop making decisions,
quit obsessing does my blue skirt clash
with my hot pink flats; should I get
my mother a caregiver or just put her
in a home, and I pull open the glass
refrigerator door, am confronted
by brands—Arrowhead, Glitter Geyser,
Deer Park, spring, summer, winter water,
and clearly the bosses of bottled water:
Real Water and Smart Water—how different
will they taste? If I drink Smart Water
will I raise my IQ but be less authentic?
If I choose Real Water will I no longer
deny the truth, but will I attract confused,
needy people who’ll take advantage
of my realness by dumping their problems
on me, and will I be too stupid to help them
sort through their murky dilemmas?
I take no chances, buy them both,
sparkling smart, purified real, drain both bottles,
look around to see is anyone watching?
I’m now brilliantly hydrated.
Both real and smart my insides bubble
with compassion and intelligence
as I walk the streets with a new swagger,
knowing the world is mine.
“Bottled Water” by Kim Dower, from Slice of Moon. © Red Hen Press, 2013.
“Why People Really Have Dogs” by Kim Dower
People really have dogs so they can talk to themselves
without feeling crazy. Take me, for example, cooking
scrambled eggs, ranting about this dumb fuck
who sent naked pictures of himself to strange women,
a politician from New York, I read about it in the paper,
start telling my nervous cock-a-poo, blind in one eye,
practically deaf (so I have to talk extra loud), all about it
and he’s looking at me, poor thing, like he thinks I’m
the smartest person he’s ever heard, and I go on, him
tilting his head, and when he sees me pick up my dish
of eggs he starts panting and wagging his tail, I tell him,
no, they’re not for you, but then I break down and give
him some knowing full well that feeding from the table
is rule number one of what you don’t do with dogs,
but I do it anyway because he wants them so bad,
because it makes me feel good to give him what he wants,
and I expound more to make sure he’s aware of the whole
political scandal, the implications for the democrats,
the hypocrisy, tell him dogs are rarely hypocrites, except
when they pretend to be interested in you when all they want
is your food, take him, for example, right now pretending
to love me so much when all he wants are my eggs, me
talking to him when all I want is to say my opinions with no one
interrupting, feel my voice roll out on a clear Saturday morning,
listen to it echo from the kitchen to the bath, up through the ceiling,
out to the sky, the voice from within, all alone in the morning
as the light from outside catches the edge of the silver mixing bowl
where the remaining, uncooked eggs sit stirred, ready to toss
into the pan, cooked, eaten by whoever pretends to want them.
Kim Dower, from Slice of Moon
Words for the Year 