gritty plaza rainbow

by Noah Uitermark

my mother then,
she was a broken soul in a concave apartment

and i was six years old

she worked at the convenience store
across the street
and i would come in for nickel-candy
and the chance to see her,
a true warrior
of the christian blood and
the american job.

i was six,
and when she came home,
she would throw her nametag onto the
littered coffee table,

she would light a cigarette
and later on that night,
i knew,
would come the drinks.

we had a red recliner chair
and i was a ninja
in practice
waiting to pounce

there was a man she sometimes
talked to in the hallway,
he read shakespeare
and wanted to do things
with her
but he never had the courage
to ask

i saw a gritty plaza rainbow
and i chose to run my tricycle off
the edge of the sidewalk
in search of the gold
at the end.

at nine mom was drunk and
she had to be up at eight the next day
and things were going alright for
us.

we needed no help and no outside
voice,
except,
i saw the plaza rainbow
and that day I swore to
find the end. I got
on my tricycle
headed
behind the horizon,
past the speed limit signs
and the lazy Sunday cops
through the water mirages
and the setting
Midwestern sun.

I decided to leave her in
search of that rainbow,
and I’ve never come back.