Hardened Play-Doh
Attic.
The smell.
I pick up the children’s clay.
I am dried up.
What’s in my hand is dried up.
In my palms I hold
my own ancient ruins.
Stonehenge in the form
of aged Play-Doh-
gnarled and noxious.
I clutch yesteryear,
clay from age five.
I take them out for a walk.
My own ancient ruins are nestled in my pocket.
Oldfangled streets— familiar, flying.
I was east of the college
and west of the church.
Wasting away, in want of wonder.
Mind a fever-infested marsh.
Massacres, tar, monocles, ashes, iron, glass,
unicorns, France, Pagan symbols, Play-Doh.
A marsh like that.
When I was small,
my parents gave me food.
Love, too. A Play-Doh child-
only molded upward.
When I went to school,
other voices said,
“There are more foundations
for greatness, and we will
lay them at your feet.”
“Ooh,” I said. “I like The Foundations.”
I often sing a song called “Build Me Up Buttercup.”
In the mirror, with a hairbrush, off-key.
Screeching.
I said, “I’d love to be built up.”
They weren’t talking about those Foundations.
They referred to foundations they want for everyone.
The ones that don’t work for everyone.
They eventually printed out a sheet that said,
“You are now greatness. Frame this golden ticket
to earn more golden tickets. More greatness.”
I grow up and grow conflicted.
Become staler than my hardened Play-Doh.
You can’t build up hardened Play-Doh.
And so I walk, with greatness at my feet,
hands in my pockets,
cradling what I used to know.