After Craig Arnold’s “Meditation on a Grapefruit”
To wake bare feet
into cool tile glassied by
the pall of night
the promise of morning
To yawn toes apart
at the chill stamping
sole into ceramic
To corpse to the kitchen
to show you love despite
the call of night
the promise of morning
To rustle the silverware
into windchime laughter to grab
the smallest spoon still
stained with
yesterday & the hardness
of its leftbehind water
To sticky thumbs
on smooth glass the lid gasping
itself open the sweet
sailing into stale air
To lower slow as syrup to dip
to click against jarbottom to lift
& to unspool gloss ribbons
like confessions
To twirl spidersilk laces
into one another spiraling metal
so sugar eats sugar
like blown glass
& only then to contour lips
to the curve
to taste
the tacky
the treacle
and trickle
into the promised morning
a softening the sink
each day slipping
each day sticking
—Isabel Menon