candy land

mary, your
ninety year
old
best friend
likes to keep
a bowl of candy
on the white
table that sits
on the baby blue
just vacuumed carpet.
mints and wrapped
assorted flavors
of hard
candy.
lemon and lime,
strawberry,
pineapple. she is
never without
candy. whenever
you visit,
she points
at the bowl
and says,
candy? you take
one. unwrap it
and slowly
let it melt into
your mouth.
the sour apple
flavor
making you pucker
and blink
your eyes as you
listen to her story
of how she crashed
her Cadillac
again at the grocery
store.