Dead Soldier - edit

[dukealien]

edit1;


At breakfast her last sweetness ran out, thin
and golden over waffles.  What am I
to do now with her empty husk, her name
emblazoned for this last time on its front–
my Aunt Jemima?  Kindly face long gone,
her smiling, chubby eagerness to please–
updated, oddly younger as she aged–
could not be tolerated, lacking rage,
resentment, or that high-chinned fortitude
unearned, displayed by those whose ancestors
were victimized to coin old suffering.

A substitute stands waiting on my shelf,
identical in form and content, full
but lacking both her image and her name:
Pearl Milling Company, it reads,
as sweet no doubt but charmless and remote.
So shall I transfer syrup from that new
to olden bottle or retain them both,
one for my waffles and the other as
a keepsake-relict of her loving soul,
dead soldier in uncivil culture wars
whose time of mythic friendliness has passed?

---

Thanks to both critics, good observations.  @TqB's were  more actionable, but @Fearful Symmetry's are at least equally valid... just harder to work in.  My experience is that blank verse will sometimes erupt in rhyme, but backing down to free verse from blank can be dispiriting.

However, if the meter is *noticed*, I'm not doing my job - as Capt. Miller said, "Make it mean something"  - no filler.  I'll keep trying.