SOUR APPLE

Are the colors really this
washed out
or is it the kodachrome
spreading turpentine

across my
mind’s eye rewriting
history between
yellowing sheets of glassine

I am crawling
across a blue shag carpet
and it is funny somehow
learning to walk knee high to
the saint bernards

always looking up at
the viaduct where the
freight trains smashed my pennies
into long flat disks

although I would still
rather have a sour apple
tootsie roll even if there are hundreds
to choose from

and even though one day I will be
the sad looking
man with a day old beard

pressing my face
against the glass staring
at an insurance
salesman sitting at his desk

where the penny candy used
to be who
doesn’t know what happened
to old mister randall

and never really
thought about what the
world is coming to

just another
street corner anachronism
like all the others wondering
out loud

why I should pay a dollar
for a candy bar at a gas station
of all places.

© 2008 Matthew S. Barton