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Sandra Kolankiewicz’s poems and stories have appeared widely over the years.  Her most recent chapbook is Even the Cracks from Finishing Line Press. More of her work can be found at sandrajkolankiewicz.blogspot.com.

Grape Popsicle

Sandra Kolankiewicz

After Christopher Wall’s “Grape Popsicle” on Spotify

There’s nothing sweet about
this one, so why the title? 
I’m used to the minor key, but frankly,
you keep leaving me on the edge in my unease. 
Such is the modern undercurrent,
such are the subway and the dirty river,
the empty basketball court,
the police cruiser at the end of the block. 
I hear you trying to summon a breeze,
your right hand like the ringing off the wall
of a telephone from childhood,
the left just trying to keep a steady time,
for what else can you do when the air’s
full of smoke and the treat on a stick’s
melting faster than you can lick? 
We can’t wait for the sun to set,
would even send it off if we could,
abandon our cities to become jungle
if we had anywhere to go,
which I hear in between your notes,
an agency not quite exit but resolved by the end.

— Sandra Kolankiewicz

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