Fall 2019 Issue
HARVEST & MEMORIES
Fall, to me, is a fresh-from-the-oven apple dumpling spooned into a bowl with bracingly cold unpasteurized milk. Fall is homemade applesauce, honey-colored and tart a...
LAST BITE
eating refrigerator magnet poetry
(with apologies to Mark Strand)
I devour words, whole stanzas
by the glare of the refrigerator light
which makes all things seem appetizing
even WAR and FLIGHT and DISCORD
LANGUID falls into the low-fat yogurt
and I eat it raw. EMBRACE lands with a splat
in the olive dish, and down it goes
UNRAVEL leaps from its perch between
GENTLY and MADNESS and
plops into the maraschino cherries.
I finger it out, and swallow fast.
In among the mustard jars, I spy
LUST and PLASTIC and CHATTER.
Greedy, I grab them all, knocked
back with a gulp of beer.
The salad crisper cannot hide
DANCE and GODDESS, or is it
GOODNESS? No matter, I gobble
with both hands.
With sticky fingers, I capture
EARTH and SPRING and PURPLE,
and call them my main course.
LEVITY bobs on the surface
of the milk pitcher— but not for long.
Near the baking soda,
I eye SOMERSAULT . . .
(it’s not a verb, you know, but
it should be). I proclaim it a verb
as I lick my lips and toss it back.
To the hum of the freezer,
I savor my dessert—MAN and
EGG and CHANCE. I am full now,
and I close the door, sinking
the kitchen into darkness, REASON
still stuck to the raspberry jam.
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