The yellow bowl

I am obsessed with my child’s memory of me

of this moment

of this yellow bowl.

This inaccessible ceramic yellow bowl

perched high upon a dusty refrigerator

will one day be dusty, too —

an image sitting in a drawer waiting to be opened

in my child’s memory.

Inside the yellow bowl are rainbow jelly beans, Polish lollipops

handmade by a retired couple sitting at a railway station.

There are remnants of chocolate wafers, too, and little crystal crumbs from an uneaten

sucking candy.

Pomegranate flavored.

In my child’s memory, this yellow bowl

is the key to happiness

and evidence of goodness

and bad.

It is what determines right and wrong.

It is — and will always be —

a beacon.

“Lost children,

find your way home.

The yellow bowl is calling you back.”