Continental Breakfast

the fruit on my plate arranges itself
around the virtuous bran muffin
and the pious hard-cooked egg:
watermelon nestles
next to cantaloupe stained by strawberries
grapes are conspicuously absent
but the requisite honeydew
occupies its watery place
on the periphery of the plate

acolytes digest
the words of the keynote speaker
while chewing and spewing
into notebooks and laptops
and I

loner in the corner

horde the pineapple
like little yellow bricks of redemption
saving its pulpy rewards until
every other morsel is consumed
and the PowerPoint presentation comes
to its impotent climax
and the speaker sits down to sign his books
and then

only then
do I allow it to traverse my tongue
and lodge firmly
between my pencil and my teeth
receiving absolution in its transubstantiation
from simple fruit
to momentary miracle