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

So Many Unexpected Things

Outside the window,
the snow is falling off the eaves
and crashing to the deck
in raucous heaps of springtime defiance.
The branches of the evergreens
and canes of dormant grape
bend low under its watery weight,
while the roses you arranged on the table
(the one you built,
just for this meal)
stand sentry, pink and white,
and the ache in my ribs
where your bicycle bucked me off its back
throbs, like a car stereo’s subwoofer,
muffled by traffic and steel.

The cup that holds my tea
was thrown by the first woman
who stood before an altar
and pledged her troth to you.
Not worth much in the end,
as it turned out, but odd to think
her hands caressed and coaxed
this vessel into shape,
like they once caressed and coaxed
you into her.
I am surprised when my tea
tastes better than usual.

And these strawberries on my plate,
the reddest, plumpest of the lot,
I would not normally be so greedy
as to take the ripest for myself
but no one else is here,
and no one else will eat them,
and so my motherly inclination
to choose the smaller, paler fruit
is shocked and set aside
as for once I give myself first dibs
and taste the privilege
of breaking fasts alone.