​Sherrel McLafferty

Scrumptious Window

               ​Golden Shovel after “the Lovers of the Poor” by Gwendolyn Brooks

We have food at home, but our unsweetened wheats are not
appealing, do not neon beckon, like the bakery’s homekind

icing spelling a name that isn’t mine. Home is oldness
and dullness beneath 60-watt bulbs, draining energy, not

able to see the stain of wood tables. The difference of lake
and ocean is how we differ from the patrons. The forest
versus the Catskills in summer, and dogs named Glencoe.

What would a taste be like? Lavender? Dragon Fruit? Nothing
our taste buds or eyes can afford. We can only imagine what it is
to be lofted. To fret about the time, shaking gloved and sturdy

hands. The people with the scone budget think nothing
of its size. Music rings for their purchases. What it is
to be us! They exclaim and laugh into a new majestic.

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Sherrel McLafferty is a multi-genre writer who currently lives in Bowling Green, Ohio. Her fiction piece "In the Time of Virus" was a finalist for BOOTH's 2020 Unexpected Literature Prize and has since been nominated for a Pushcart. Her poetry has been, or will be, published with journals such as ArLiJo, Requited Journal, Notre Dame Review, and Juked.