Stuffed children, eat merrily
Rainbow-clad, troughs,
Everlasting spangle.
Singing, singing, singing.
If houses were of bubble gum,
Streets of sweetened salts,
Oceans filled with cherry pop,
Lakes of chocolate malt,
Then Sally Saunders’ pillow-based
Allergy, fitted beyond feather tickles
To shapes, stripes, and mass’ collective softness
Might source, again, her nose to new neighbors.
Marshmallows, I assume,
The rocking horse plus jungle fowl.
Deciduous dancers in the breeze,
Would petrify, silenced, at sugary hours.
Sniffling, sad, Sally yearned,
Yielded and acquiesced
To rest her head on something better.
She screamed for a bolster.
Plentiful dead poultry,
Patient to a number
Basking patent leather sunshine
When half a cork crumbs chocolate crumb.
Common folk, those ginger bread,
Could have no teeth to chew
If if happened that they did,
Cavities all through!
Mightily miffed, Sally supposed
Sleepy sacks meant someone merited
Histamine-free drifty days;
Darlings needed in other ways.
Changes come and children know,
Oracles rise as soothsayers go
Truth reflects what
Wisdom should.
Sally sullied many stores pursuing dreams of more
Stones, cements, ornaments to cushion her sweet head
Turtle shells and cocker bells made mad our little girl.
The fruit’s rotten ‘neath the sheet, but her appetite’s been thrilled.
KJ Hannah Greenberg’s poem To Be a Midlist Author appeared here in March 2011.