wildscape. literary journal

Marshmallow Test
by Joseph Geskey

He lived his childhood
believing everything
within a container
must be rationed.

He was obedient.
Carafe of water
beckoning thirst
while playing taught

temperance, foregoing
the indulgence of those
with a non-scarcity mindset,
water greedily guzzled

until quenched, then poured
over faces and bodies
before evaporating
without a second thought.

Imagination as big
as a canvas, learning
to thin his brushstrokes,
one-time allocation

of a few primary colors
that still settled below
the top of plastic palette
wells with so many unfilled.

Decades later he learned
about the marshmallow
experiment. If preschool
children could wait

fifteen minutes without
eating a marshmallow
placed in front of them
they could have two.

Unrealistic he thinks,
only in research labs
could a promise like this
be made and kept.

about the author // Joseph Geskey