Sugar Jets by Patrick T. Reardon (I AM STILL WAITING Series)

Sugar Jets
by Patrick T. Reardon

I was six and unclear on the concept.
The commercial, black and white, for Sugar Jets
told me, if I ate a bowl, I would be jet-propelled.

I could see the boy and girl eat Sugar Jets
and fly around the box, jet-propelled.
They were drawings. But a contract was offered,
I thought.

You can see where this is going.

I nagged my mother or maybe my father
— a scary proposition, either way —
to buy Sugar Jets, without saying why.

A box was bought.
I ate a bowl
and went to the back porch, two flights up
from the pavement and lawn below,
looked out over the yard and alley and blacktop,
a gray pavement playground.

At least I didn’t throw myself off.

Instead, I waited for whatever would happen
to jet-propel me
out into the air
and into freedom
and into wonder, maybe a rebirth of wonder.

I am still waiting.

IMAGE: Still from animated commercial for Sugar Jets cereal (mid-1950s).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: True story.  Lucky I didn’t jump.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Patrick T. Reardon, a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, is the author of nine books, including The Loop: The “L” Tracks That Shaped and Saved Chicago; the poetry collection Requiem for David and Faith Stripped to Its Essence, a literary-religious analysis of Shusaku Endo’s novel Silence. His poetry has appeared in Burningwood Literary Journal, Eclectica, Esthetic Apostle, Ground Fresh Thursday, Literary Orphans, Rhino, Spank the Carp, Main Street Rag, The Write Launch, Hey I’m Alive, Meat for Tea, Silver Birch Press, Tipton Poetry Journal, UCity Review, and Under a Warm Green Linden. Reardon, who worked as a Chicago Tribune reporter for 32 years, has published essays and book reviews widely in such publications as the Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Crain’s Chicago Business, National Catholic Reporter, and U.S. Catholic. His tenth and eleventh books are forthcoming: Puddin: The Autobiography of a Baby, a Memoir in Prose Poems (2021, Third World Press) and Darkness on the face of the water (2022, Kelsay Books). His Pump Don’t Work blog can be found at patricktreardon.com.