Friday, July 13, 2007

THIS TASTELESS, FECKLESS LIFE

by Earl J. Wilcox

Researchers say people with the inability to smell or taste some spices and certain fruit show signs of early onset of Alzheimer’s.
--Charlotte Observer, July 2007

Granulated sugar mixed with cinnamon sprinkled
freely on lavishly buttered piece of plain white bread---

One tiny yellow lemon, grown on grandmother’s back-
yard tree, juice enough to flood deep-fried calamari---

Slowly eaten morsels of thin-sliced banana, as if this
were the last meal before dying, before taste disappears---

Yesterday the toast, today the lemon, tomorrow bananas---
gone like recollections from this moment’s metaphors.


Earl J. Wilcox founded The Robert Frost Review, which he edited for more than a decade. His poetry was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.