by Jennifer Kelley
Empty bottles make me sob
full as they are
of lacking.
The air inside them,
whether fresh or stale,
is never what their possessor
wishes it were.
I remember my dad
with his red Bic pens
scrawling edits and corrections
over my schoolwork and stories
while I stood there
with such hope that,
this time,
there would be a little less
to mend.
At ten, with clenched fists,
I knew that his approval,
his total acceptance and praise,
was never on the table,
nor on his suited knee
where he pressed my 4th grade story
against a copy of Newsweek
to steady it.
I knew that Newsweek and I
were judged by the same standard.
Only the best was acceptable.
And it made me proud,
to be judged among the real writers,
to know that he wasn’t
pulling any punches,
that he would never lie and tell me I was good
when I wasn’t.
I knew I wasn’t.
So I’d clutch his corrections
in my – quite grown up, I can assure you – hands
and scurry away to make his changes
in the hopes of getting closer to good.
Empty bottles
make me sob,
full as they are
of lacking.
The air inside them,
whether fresh or stale,
is never what their possessor
wishes it were.
