sepia photograph
Pop's general store
I recall the aromas
cedar wax, sauerkraut
overripe bananas
Free Verse
Jerome Snelling
From birth, my malformed heart
was a time bomb, ready to explode
at the least provocation, or simply
because the hour had expired. I pictured
a parking meter, minutes ticking away.
When the red flag popped up, my time
on earth would be over. Mother's
pictures grimmer, she prayed for healing,
phoned the dorm, panicked at no answer.
Pain smote me as I studied. I fell, book
open to Gulliver bound by Lilliputian
cords. Barbed-wire binding my heart,
I struggled as Gulliver struggled.
Unlike his fairy tale ending, my heart
succumbed to the force, the red flag
popped up, pain fled. I was at peace.
Not mother. A phenomenal perception
struck her as my breath ceased. She
dialed, praying as never before, though
her knees were arthritic from pressure
of hardwood, cold tile, damp garden soil.
When I did not answer, she dialed
the room next to mine. Numb from pot,
the clown said I was out. Three days
later, at mother's insistence, they found
me and Gulliver where we'd fallen.
Gulliver rests on Mother's coffee table
with a single page, an essay title in bold
print, my last words to the world—
Gulliver and the Lilliputians:
The Enormity of the Small.
