Lily’s small hand fits like a spatula

 

Lily’s small hand fits like a spatula

inside the peanut butter jar
scraping corners that hide the best stuff.
All the rainy ride to preschool in deep
depressing December she licks fingers.
    “Goombye”
A peanut butter kiss.

Today’s job an auto body shop
replacing fluorescent ballasts.
Amid clanking wup-wup-wupping
I overhear one guy say on the phone:
    “You mean he’s dead?
    Actually dead?
    Did the kids see?”
Neighbor hung himself in the back yard.
Had children, a family. Jesus!
So at lunch break we talk about why
and about another guy who went out drinking
with 5 friends and shot himself in a bar.
Splat. And we wonder when dead
do you care what people think?
    Yes, I say. You care.

I pick up Lily. Burritos to eat in the truck
driving home in the spicy-stuffy cab.
Today she took a field trip, got to ride
an alligator (she calls it) to the second floor,
got to push the button.

Next morning the rain has ended.
A new jar 100% peanut all natural, no sugar.
A spoon, she licks. That man, not here.

……

First published in Rat’s Ass Review —thank you Roderick Bates, editor
Photo: my rarely clean truck. I must’ve just washed it.

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