Sunday, February 2, 2014

Assignment 5: Symbolist Poem

Sidewalk Cracks
by Brenna Thummler

It wasn’t just a sidewalk.
It was a front-walk and a back-walk, and
In the summers, a flattened wok that fried my tiptoes,
Ten little pigs crying “wee, wee, wee”
Until they were pork roast.

Mommy set out my sneakers with the butterflies,
And I had learned to tie those silly purple laces
Years ago,
But my toes were painted pretty from the
Only polish bottle in my closet drawer.
How was I to hide them in a shoe?

Down the road, a row of cubicles where we
Worked overtime in the haze of the sun,
Squeezing lemons into Dixie cups and
Slumping into lawn chairs, watching neighbors pass by
With their Coca-Cola bottles and their
Pockets full of change.

A trampoline without a bounce
Where we would hop forever,
Throwing rocks on numbered blocks,
Or in between the steady swing of a
Rainbow-colored rope.

Some days I would stay inside with apple juice
And watch as the conveyor belt, slow and sometimes broken, would
Pull along these people that I’d never seen.
But then there’d come the mailman with the limp,
The runner with the bald spot,
Or that oddball Gus who lives two houses down.

And every day at sunset, I watched
The belt bring home my mommy.
Eyes drooping, back curling, mouth stern, for
“That’s what happens when you work.”
But she’d still make me my mac and cheese,
Extra gooey like I liked it,
And tuck me in between my toasty sheets.

Until the day the belt kept rolling, pulling strangers
But no mommy.
Tomorrow wouldn’t bring a sidewalk or
A front-walk or a back-walk
Just a dead-end.
But how was I to know today?
So out I tiptoed one last time to wait
For drooping eyes,
Careful not to step on any cracks.

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