Bukowski's Bluebird

Two little girls are entranced by a strawberry milkshake each

And I must admit, so am I

They come in former pickle jars

Some fluffy shit on top the milk,

doubling the height of the drink

Various candies poking in and out of the pink fluff

But the pure joy in a child's face when she yanks a strip of candy from the jar

That's what caught my eye

I try and remember myself at that age -- five maybe

All happy memories, fun times, playing, laughing

Joyful. We moved house when I was five

and now I wonder if I never forgave my parents that,

21 years post-hoc

After five until I was a teen, I remember nothing but the broadest detail

Birth of brother, sister, deaths of grandfathers,

Trips to Sydney,

Almost drowning in a pool,

And none of childlike joy,

The bliss of demolishing a ridiculously pink milkshake full of candy and fluffy shit

And now the heartache that seems my constant ground of being

Has made my heart so tough

I have a bluebird in my heart like Bukowski,

I never let him out

But sometimes he pecks at the inside of my heart

trying to emerge as a baby from an egg

But I can't have that

To let him out so he sores too far

Swoops too deep

Flies too quick

I munch my cheesecake silently

Sip on my coffee

and blithely stare at the spidery cracks on my laptop screen