For Jadah (Children Aren’t Pies)

Photo by Tracel Grumbach

I watched three buzzards circle

as a mother baked pie,

no attention paid

as ingredients mixed,

not enough sugar while she text,

too many eggs as she kissed last nights nameless lover good riddance,

oven temp too low,

timer turned too short,

rack set high,

while she toked on a blunt

and sucked Jim Beam.

 

I watched three buzzards circle

as friends laughed at the pie,

as the mother cursed it,

named it worthless,

dumped in the kitchen trash,

and sealed the garbage bag with a white wiry tie.

 

I watched three buzzards circle

as the mother’s next nameless lover dropped the bag in the dumpster outside,

as garbage men tossed it into their stinking truck,

as they unloaded the reeking bag at the landfill,

as gnats and rodents ate to the buzz of flies,

as bulldozers pushed soil over what remained of the pie.

 

I watched three buzzards circle

as grass grew green on the dirt covered hill of waste,

as rain fell on it,

wind blew over it,

snow blanketed it,

and the occasional yellow flowered weed would grow on top of

the dirt covered hill of waste.

 

I watched three buzzards circle

and then

fly away.