Stealing the Pumpkins
By Chandra E.A. Dickson
I
3,656 seeds I shaved from their insides: wet with sinew and so white that I should have planted
them in high ground so next year he could have walked among their sensation. . .
Instead, I washed the sin off in the kitchen sink, seasoned them with Lowry’s, and roasted them
in the oven. We lived for days this way, the seeds and my breast his only meal. I pulled the extra
shards from his teeth and begged him to eat more.
The stuffed black cat you gave him meows every time he crawls by. It wakes me from my dream;
beside me in bed, your hand between my legs, my breast under your arm, touching your mouth.
II
It is no use to try to make sense of what happened to you in Blessed Sacrament’s side yard or
why you believed that Mary cried for you when you touched her feet, clutching my rosary beads.
You told me that you were not asking for forgiveness but for something more.
How many trips it must have taken to bring all those pumpkins, one by one, to the back
porch? I have imagined the hollow sound they must have made as you dropped each one;
the way the orange of their skin was the same color as the sunset the moment he was born.
How we knew that you weren’t just sleeping. And the note--
“You will have to teach him to be poor with grace.”
CHANDRA E.A. DICKSON received her MFA in 2009 from Wichita State University and is the founder
and editor of the broadside publication Poetry for the Masses. Her work has appeared in The
Cimarron Review, The Chiron Review, and Mighty Mercury.
I
3,656 seeds I shaved from their insides: wet with sinew and so white that I should have planted
them in high ground so next year he could have walked among their sensation. . .
Instead, I washed the sin off in the kitchen sink, seasoned them with Lowry’s, and roasted them
in the oven. We lived for days this way, the seeds and my breast his only meal. I pulled the extra
shards from his teeth and begged him to eat more.
The stuffed black cat you gave him meows every time he crawls by. It wakes me from my dream;
beside me in bed, your hand between my legs, my breast under your arm, touching your mouth.
II
It is no use to try to make sense of what happened to you in Blessed Sacrament’s side yard or
why you believed that Mary cried for you when you touched her feet, clutching my rosary beads.
You told me that you were not asking for forgiveness but for something more.
How many trips it must have taken to bring all those pumpkins, one by one, to the back
porch? I have imagined the hollow sound they must have made as you dropped each one;
the way the orange of their skin was the same color as the sunset the moment he was born.
How we knew that you weren’t just sleeping. And the note--
“You will have to teach him to be poor with grace.”
CHANDRA E.A. DICKSON received her MFA in 2009 from Wichita State University and is the founder
and editor of the broadside publication Poetry for the Masses. Her work has appeared in The
Cimarron Review, The Chiron Review, and Mighty Mercury.