The Empty Jar
High on a shelf in my mother's kitchen
Sat an empty jar I couldn't reach.
I'd search her birch cabinets to eat
Away my child stress in piano practice,
Trying to please her perfection.
I'd open cans or packages in a quest
To end the empty pain of my life; shut
Into a closet that firmly held my stomach.
Covered with fat, I hid secrets.
It began my life of many addictions,
Twinned with a worse quality of rudeness.
Simple things can hold great mysteries.
Down deep were dreams and urges
I could never fulfill that held the unsaid.
Was it a secret I ate all the food?
Slowly stocks of goods would disappear,
Purchased from a smilish salesman
Who sold what was not in local stores.
He drove a white Cadillac up our hill
To sell another's doctor's wife their ego.
Mom, different from the common folk.
I don't remember the last I was there,
Walking in that kitchen I'd spent searching.
Divorced in her newer home on the creek,
After she passed, I found that empty jar
In the back of her dark brown kitchen.
Was the jar moved there by her
Or by sweaty movers told to take it all?
It remained empty with clear glass
Like the first day found in urgent search.
I like to think it held her hopes and dreams
Unfulfilled by imperfect husbands,
An empty jar, an empty life on a shelf.
It was full of perfect sadness she passed
To one child, who lives it to this day.
Barry G. Wick
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