Strawberry Fool

My Strawberry Fool,
lost in the sea of starfish summers.
Shoulders up, prepared to ward off bad news: the cold sick of other’s
doubt.
The only unconquerable beast
your own voice,
unwelcome echoes behind each fruit seed.

First blush,
once pale green,
a discomfort as bones rub together, protruding buds and protruding
hearts.

My Strawberry Fool,
you’re dark with sunburns, a skin of life’s moments keeping you
distant from the sunspots of ludus, young thoughts and nervous
smiles.

I miss the smears of white from when your mind wondered at its color,
but I know you’re better now, my Strawberry Fool.

I miss our youth,
our lives’ misused pools and ponds in the summertime.
The children have come
and left their water bottles beneath our distorted surface.

Now there are footprints,
rocks strewn from thin fingers.
We were limitless and now
we are old and I am nothing
but fingernails and asymmetrical lips.

My Strawberry Fool,
teach me how to swallow sunlight;

adulthood has devoured all green youth, small seeds slipping into the
crevices of asymmetrical teeth.

My Strawberry Fool,
I feel bleached by
teeth whitener,
Ergonomic and desirably blanched.­­ Take me back to the earth and
the dirt. Teach me how to absorb soft summer, to become reddened
by

liquid hearts and butterflies.

 

Anapurl Feldman is from Wareham, Massachusetts, one of the many small towns lost in the abyss of never-heard-of-it. She likes writing about people and their strangeness, is currently a WLP first-year and has a soft spot for Rumi poetry and oatmeal.