I am obsessed with my child’s memory of me
of this moment
of this yellow bowl.
This inaccessible ceramic yellow bowl
perched high upon a dusty refrigerator
will one day be dusty, too —
an image sitting in a drawer waiting to be opened
in my child’s memory.
Inside the yellow bowl are rainbow jelly beans, Polish lollipops
handmade by a retired couple sitting at a railway station.
There are remnants of chocolate wafers, too, and little crystal crumbs from an uneaten
sucking candy.
Pomegranate flavored.
In my child’s memory, this yellow bowl
is the key to happiness
and evidence of goodness
and bad.
It is what determines right and wrong.
It is — and will always be —
a beacon.
“Lost children,
find your way home.
The yellow bowl is calling you back.”
