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.
