Black Shiner Poem by Michael Arthur

Black Shiner

Frozen confessional
never mending last meal
has thirty seconds
before I pull back the foil
and eat even the peach cobbler
which time before last had a rind
stewed up in it that was bitter
cause it was stolen from a lemon
casting me to hell I reckon
for being a bullheaded toiler
kitchen witch of a beseecher hob nobler
grandmother who told time by Roman numerals
and a Pieter pendulum cross woven
memory fends off a crass sweetness never mentioned
as the grumbling pecks from the boiler
blitzing over the keepsakes and the sobbing
little boy wearing corduroy overalls crooning
over his crucifix thrown on the linoleum
icing his black shiner pain swell.