November 28, 2023

ripe

Outside, the light dwindles too rapidly. I feel my own thoughts
swirling, trying to find a thesis statement. In weeks, the trees have purged
the last of their outfits. The neighbor’s house peeks through—red car
in the driveway, an overturned kayak in the stubbled yard. On my lap,
the cat turns into an apostrophe, falls into the kind of sleep I can only
dream about. What I’ve been trying to say in all my conversations is
Let’s take better care of each other or, put another way, What is the shape
of your particular sadness and How can we live with such thin skin and still love 
what is disappearing, taste it in our mouths, ripe as a pear? Instead, someone 
offers tea, ginger biscuits. We sit, open-palmed, not quite looking at each other.