On Something I Miss

by grace pariser

I want you to think of Radio-Flyer wagons, 

String tied to plastic sleds,

Jostled against the tops of hills packed glassy with snow

Like shellacked gymnasium floors in September. 

When we were happy, time moved slowly.

We had to drag it to keep pace. 

We never talk about that. 

Beauty is underrated. 

People assume its overuse

And dare not risk appearing ordinary. 

The glass shattered in my picture frame.

The vacuum’s neck engulfed the slices and splinters,

Of crystalline teeth

And then it was gone, like always.   

The watercolor still hangs above my lightswitch. 

It pains me, thinking how plundered it seems,

What it might lose next, 

But it fits too squarely with the doorframe

To bury it.   

I think of people marching up the mountain it displays,

Clad with thick jackets and the trill of boots 

Lumbering on top of gnarled, smokebush shadows,   

But it’s just a picture.

They’re only toy soldiers.