Improv 3, Week 6

Taking this moment to stress the reality of a speaker, not the poet.

Improv of Amy Pence’s 8^th Grade Locker Combination:

I stopped liking grape jelly years ago.

When I chose strawberry, my whole life spread

into the endless possibilities of choice and sandwich.

When I worked the knife along the jam rim

and rubbed its seeded goo into the grooves

of my whole wheat, I saw marmalade

and toasted bread, whose heat melted

the peanut butter like the promise

of something that could have been real--

like you, had I not waited several hours

in a plastic gown to lose you, in netted cap

and booties watching 13 Going on 30,

thinking you would never know those numbers

or the taste of a childhood staple

and not even losing a tear.