Janet Buck - poem


Brownie Points

Pity’s rice was over-cooked
and sticking to our mental pan.
Pigeons caught in jaws of eagles
when it came to saving dreams.
Cancer ate your second leg.
Now your kidneys are complaining.
Transplants can be done, of course,
but it will take the match of love.

This crisis dinghy seems to float
among the rapids that we share.
Sick-to-death of, well, transcending
vapors in the cave of lame.
Down depression’s laundry chute.
Hitting bottom dark and hard.
I was born with birdseed bones
and weak excuses for a hip.
Yours were stolen like a purse
in dark and cruel parking lots.

Depression is a paper-shredder
we could often do without.
What we share involves denying
creaking motion’s slow retreat.
"Pretty" would demand revision.
Doctors had their way with us.
We have scars like Brownie points
that crystalize mortality.
Answers in our aching hearts,
their pages punched with incomplete.

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