paintedcave

Please Don’t Say You Want the Sorbet

Let me tell you about our award winning chocolate.
How about a free sample of Rainforest Crunch?
Anything to distract your eyes from the colorful swirls
In that tub of ice posing as a dairy dessert.
Last week a two-year-old with no sense
Of compassion demanded the sorbet. These hands still throb
From chipping and chiseling enough flakes of sweetened ice
To fill a double dip cup. Please, any other flavor
And I’ll throw on hot fudge or a confetti of sprinkles.

I know, it’s almost painful to trust
These muddied browns and pale cream flavors
When compared to the neon rainbows of artificial additives.
Just as distressing as picking a cereal that boasts no toy
Among the marshmallows and sugary chunks.
So you’ll insist on this insipid sorbet like other impatient simpletons
And rattle the tip jar with your lackluster pennies;
Spare change tossed away like advice you failed to digest.

First Night in a Foster Home

Sisters share a nightmare in their bedroom
Of callous fingers with a touch that froze.
Down the hall cried another, left behind
By a mom in the throes of addiction.
Comfortless soldiers, yet we did battle
Without arrows, only bows and quivers.
Now away from our makers’ smiting hands
We’re still pros at pessimistic foresight.
Prisoners-of-war in a foreign land.
Where no one outgrows the          left by home.

About the Author

Abi L. Rexrode is a student at Warren County Community College where her poems have been published in the college’s literary magazine, Ars Poetica. Her work has also been published in East Fork Literary Journal and Living Lessons. She is grateful for those who inspired her and hopes her poems will inspire others.