Colton
He holds my hand when we cross the street
because he is five and streets are busy
and the world is large.
Sometimes he tells me,
Nana, we have a situation—
when red juice is spilled on the white carpet
or we cannot find that one last Lego
that completes the castle we have spent
animal-cracker-juice-box hours building
and I say,
I guess we do have a situation.
I look at his flawless face,
untouched by weather or worry,
his eyes all aperture, all the planets we’ve yet to name,
and I think, yes,
so many unwrapped situations.
I squeeze his hand a little tighter
deciding to savor this simple sugar
on my soured palate,
remembering that to be five
is to live on quiet country roads with ducks and dust,
and cool nights under fireflied skies.
.
Calluses: An Apology
He smelled of turpentine and sawdust,
peering over his black bakelite glasses
like meerkats peeking out of holes in the ground
surveying an uncertain landscape.
He built my grandmother a small greenhouse
on the side of their clapboard house from old windows
scavenged from a junkyard,
scraped the chipping paint and nailed them together,
sealed them with caulk to keep water out, warmth in,
topped it off with a fresh coat of white paint
and a gravy boat of pride.
He stepped back like a curator at the Met,
tilted his head, tucked in his white t-shirt and shouted
“Lucille, get out here and see what I’ve built you!”
I suppose orchids and lilies in winter can make
someone question the veracity of weather,
the blur from beads of condensation between
the forecast inside and out,
but the sun shining through those repurposed windows
kept her sorting annual seeds: marigolds, petunias,
geraniums and snapdragons,
some Solomon’s seal for posterity—
vegetable seeds too,
tomatoes, peppers, perhaps even acorn squash,
planting them in starter pots as she looked out at the frozen ground
believing like a bible that spring would be different this year,
that there would be a moonlit harvest
and the children wouldn’t be afraid
anymore.
© Diana Fusting
Diana Fusting has been writing poetry in her head for over fifty years and recently decided to let the words fall out. She was named a Special Merit Finalist in the 2022 Muriel Craft Bailey Poetry Contest and twice as a Special Merit Finalist in the 2023 Muriel Craft Bailey Poetry Contest. Her poems have appeared in The Comstock Review and Passager.
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