Absence Of Anything Special Poem by Charlotte Ballard

Truth can be held in a bottle and brought out
For weddings and charities like some old
Piece of lace curtain from Aunt Edna's old
Box of dried parchment, pieces of a life of
A girl that disappeared into a
Doughy mass of flesh, rippled and dimpled
In soft plastic crush,
Who had lips once that pressed a young
Man's heart into his throat with
Just a promise of a kiss just there,
Or there, but never, oh my, never
There.
It's the same, I think. Like yesterday's
Lemonade, too flat to do anything
But pour it out, into a sink that
Needs scrubbing from the gallons
Of coffee poured out, left over, too,
From a wake given for Mr. Pasaseni
Or was it Mrs. Ughnot? I don't remember,
Only I see the lemonade swirl and mix
With the muddy reminders of something
That won't ever mix up again. It won't do,
It says. It simply won't do.
Whose love was it anyway?
That evaporated into TV guides
Tucked into pockets of lazy-boys tipped
Back by slippered old men who start snoring before
The first commercial is half past.
It wasn't mine. It couldn't be.
I would know-Wouldn't I?