Soft Resonance

                              after Josef Albers’s Homage to the Square

My childhood rattles in a box of lemonheads
from Marv’s Deli, sour at first suck, color of lost teeth.
Nobody ever bought Marv’s pickles from the huge jar
by the register, the brine more green than yellow,
piss of a jilted lover. I heard Marv’s burned to the ground.