Red-dyed fingers dig into Jell-O.
Extract bits of marshmallow,
pineapple, cherry, walnut.
Leave gaping pockmarks
for other bits to gape at, cry over.
Pontificate their time.
Still pockmarks close over.
Jell-O demands that.
Missing bits are forgotten.
Where they were is forgotten.
Other mournful marshmallows,
cherry slices are plucked,
the spaces, spouses they leave
filled with shiny stickiness.
Brennan Thomas is a Professor of English at Saint Francis University, where she directs the campus’s writing center and teaches courses in creative nonfiction, fiction, novel writing, and Disney film studies.