The Sand Hill Review               http://www.sandhillreview.org 2011

My Firecracker

You could write to me and I would be beautiful.

We are children of the radiance. I forgive you.

Today I abandon garden tools. My cut flowers die

eventually. Woe, the unplanted lilac bush

in its nursery bucket. Your finger

on barbed wire would also bleed.

I have been no openhearted gift;

this I know.

But you lift your wings. Perhaps one day

you might eat again at my table

my corn soup, which currently

I forget how to make.

In France an ancient gray cathedral

has been sandblasted clean.

What if we were so washed?

What if multicolored lights

played upon our wrinkled hands

while people drank lemonade,

oohed and aahed?

Muriel Karr