barn door

 

A DAY LIKE AN APPLE

 

Pick me a day

like an apple from a tree

pluck it from out of the night

start with a sunrise and weather

we may or may not approve of

that bears resemblance to a season.

The sun will spend the day performing its arc across the sky as

during this day we eat, perspire, breathe, piss, slough off skin

as hearts pump blood in the living while the dead stay dead

In your life or mine there may or may not be lovemaking.

death, birth (while all around us birth, death, lovemaking)

we give this day no special day, as we do not

name an apple before we eat it, after we eat it,

as we give no name to the day of our birth (which we have

forgotten) or the day of our death (which

we do not believe in).

This day not yesterday, this day not tomorrow,

on this day she left me or did not leave me

on this day my body moved with glistening control

or stumbled in weakness, confused by disease

A day made up of wind and laughter, sparrows and kisses,

streets and memories, wine and prayer, children and yawning,

money and cooking and then

the sun sets without a cue from us and the day

ends at an undetermined point with

no score, no conclusion,

swallowed by the night and we sleep expectant of

another day to be picked

like an apple from a tree.