Jim Doran
Rotten Fruit
Oil on canvas
Response

Linger
By Yolanda Palis
Inspiration piece

There’s the trash – old newspapers, shoeboxes,

an avocado pit, me in family pictures

at my mother’s knee. Lingering salmon smell

of expiring.  Can’t recall –

did I dream; was I gay, bi or hetero?

Pushed away by a boy, and an irritated voice

I still hear “Let me be!”  Now I recall, I chose

to die.  Now limited by coffin space, I linger

in the air, the rotting stink of forgotten berries

and bananas, disturbing like the questions

I asked.  I linger, the anger between puke

and stifled burp, not having done enough

to stop words that hit, that caused,

perhaps, my indifference to the gash

still gurgling purple blood to earth’s gut.

.

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