Hot Medicinal Pink

At the YMCA, grunting

in between exercises called

forties and cat-and-camel,

after left bridge – right bridge

and ball toss and squats, and

the stretching and contortions

designed to improve flexibility

and determine if I have any

muscles left to tear, I see it

sitting rather forlorn and alone

in a corner, a pink chair,

the shade of Pepto-Bismol

that my parents believed

cured all stomach ailments,

a medicinal hot pink, my mind

traveling from chair to medicine

to that stomach ache when I

was five which wasn’t as bad

as the scarlet fever when I

was three or the croup when I

was six and my father fixed me

hot tea and homemade waffles

and I wonder what it is about

pink that always reminds me

of illness.

This poem is submitted to dVerse Poets for Open Link Night. The links will be live at 2 p.m. Central time.

Without my intending it, it also became another in the series of poems about growing up in the South, suggested by my friend Nancy Rosback.