Blue Promise

He clutched the blue pop, tight in his small fist,

a sticky jewel, a sugary, sweet bliss.

And I remembered, like a sudden shock,

a similar promise, years on the clock,

made to a niece, whose bright, wide eyes

had held my words against the morning skies.

'Later,' I'd said, 'a blue one, just for you.'

Then life had blurred, as grown-up matters do.

That crinkling wrapper, loud in the quiet store,

a ghost of something I'd forgotten before.

He sucked his hard, bright candy, unaware

of the soft, sharp guilt that settled in the air.

And all the years that stood between that day

and this, just swept that small, blue thing away.