—IT’S CLOSE ENOUGH

 

                                          The Red Wheelbarrow

 

William Carlos Williams was wrong. Nothing depends on a red wheelbarrow. It doesn’t have anything to do with your crappy youth or the way Mother pokes needles into the ragdoll in her lap, that tattered cloth thing which looks so much like you. 

Red wheelbarrows actually fucking suck, if you ask me.

If you push a red wheelbarrow far enough, long enough, nothing much happens except you’ll get lizard blisters or maybe your arms end up a couple of inches stretched out, like a boy-chimp, but you’ll still be a skinny punk afterward. The moon won’t talk to you, the buttercups won’t, and no girl is ever going to open her mouth with your name in it unless they’re saying you have Cooties, that you’re the class freak who never speaks.

And still, I keep hauling that red wheelbarrow all around, up and down our craggy hillside, way past the trailer park and back, because I trust poetry. It’s already saved my life more than once, and I’m only nine so far. 

So, maybe the trick is filling the wheelbarrow with flowers instead of dirt, balloons instead of plucked weeds and dandelions. Or maybe it’s the dandelions. Maybe that’s what your future depends on—how they’re beautiful, their fragrance and color, how they’re not weeds after all, but instead, something special you hold onto.