Patient Melon (December 2009)

This morning,
my melon was loud with blandness
and my Nantucket orange juice
burned at my mouth
with acidity.
I am not one for whom
orange juice
is usually too acidic,
and I am not one for whom
disappointments are usually everywhere.

This morning tastes like waiting,
like the unplugging of appliances
and the cleaning of the refrigerator,
like sandwiches for dinner
and darkness falling at five,
like the first time that even Michael Bublé disappoints,
in a too-clean, too-empty room.

And this morning, the one that tastes like waiting,
I look down at my fingers to see
the good fork,
the real silverware,
making stabs at the patient melon.
I had thought to use plastic.

Closure.
My feet carry me to the kitchen
on a special trip for this fork,
and I wonder why I attach myself
to the concept of years,
this invented ending.
Tenderly,
I wash this fork,
just this fork,
and under the fluorescent lights of my room,
it sparkles.

Maybe I’ve forgotten how to be alone,
but I don’t think so.
Sitting in silence,
I roll my tongue over my lips, my teeth, the roof of my mouth,
tasting my own flavor.

Amanecer.
To tumble sadly between clean sheets
for four hours
and wake up in Los Angeles,
to wake up to an obnoxious cell phone alarm
and rush out of bed
thinking that it will wake her,
only to remember
she has gone,
to shine the cell phone light on her empty bed,
just to make sure.
To dress,
to eat melon whose patience
has exhausted its flavor,
and drink orange juice whose pH
merits contemplation,
to zip dense suitcases,
to leave this place and this year
disappointed in my breakfast,
and you.

To stand and fall,
maybe even the ending of this day is invented,
and still you say nothing.