sweets

The first gumdrop is purple
and tastes of grape and spice
as I chew, I remember
Nana Durgin's dentures sitting
beside her in the common area
at the Reading Nursinghome.

"Melissa," she said, "will be
a beautiful woman. Just beautiful
look at her dark hair
and that smile. So beautiful."

Her voice creaked like a rockingchair
and she was immediately whisked away
to 1925, and the arms of her Harold.
"Oh Harold," she smiled at her son-in-law,
"Isn't she just the most beautiful baby girl?"

The second gumdrop is green,
and thankfully not lime, but instead
a joyful jubilee of mint julip covered
in crispy grains of processed sugar.
My first chew juices the memories
of Christmas 1976 from my mind.

Papa sat with his nicest leather slippers
in a heavy brown and orange plaid robe
to the left of the 6-foot-tall Christmas Tree
decorated with hand-me-down ornaments
and surrounded by packages of just the right size
wrapped in brightly colored papers and bows.

As my father selected presents to handout
Papa would smile, and nod and look at me
as if he had arrived in heaven. "no," he said
"Not yet." and my father seemed to agree
for a while, until, before me sat the largest
box beneath the tree.

I opened it carefully, but knew long before
the wrapping was off that my every dream
had come true: A mountain full of little
soldiers with barely bendable appendages,
little guns for their tiny hands, and lots
and lots of cars for them to drive around
in as I would make loud noises of war and ecstasy.

The third gumdrop is my last: It is red;
suffused with the essence of cinnamon and
the tell-tale of her long lost heartbeat
I do not sob, or sigh -- it is too late for that.

Her dark hair is gone.
Her red lips too.
The husky voice of the first angel
I ever knew sings only for God now.

There are more gumdrops,
but I put them away for tomorrow;
there can be too much --
even of the best of things.