Tonight's Poet Corner: Attention Seeker

Attention Seeker
by Belinda Roddie

The boy eats all of his grandfather's
rainbow medication,
to see if he can grow wings of wax,
ascend like Icarus,
and touch the color spectrum
without burning his fingers on the sun.

There are no negative side effects
to the pill consumption, but his mother
insists on taking him to the hospital,
and his father has one hand on his hip
as he slowly and deliberately
undoes his belt buckle so he can
leave a pretty welt on the
obvious attention seeker's face.

His grandfather, out of everyone,
minds the least, and he asks to
see the boy's tongue - but it's pink,
not blue or red or green like the mosaic
of tablets swallowed in the fantasy
assembly line. And he smiles and says,
"This lad will grow wings some day,"
before taking his cane and using the tip
to poke into the father's leg
as a warning toward further violence.

The boy goes to his room.
He sleeps soundly. He dreams
rambunctiously. All carnivals and
noise that no adult would tolerate.
And there, he eats candy,
which tastes sweeter than his grandfather's
supplements, and it makes him grow
gilded wings, and he flies effortlessly,
lost in the dust of the Ferris wheel.