Well, as you can see, not only do I like to eat,
but I like thinking about eating, too.
So, I'm going to read you another food poem.
It's a little bit different in tone, though.
I guess poets like to declare what their turf is, "Yeah, this
belongs to me."
You say to the other poets, "Keep away from food images,
they belong to me."
This poem is called "Breakfast Cherries."
I am the breakfast poet.
I eat everything.
I have chosen again to will to hold on, composing my voice.
This is my last meal, my children's random quarreling,
the same last meal that I ate yesterday.
Join me.
Be with me.
Gladden your tongue with ripe words,
though only the sun, the whitening sun,
shimmers the cherries all at once in their yellow porcelain
bowl.
They shimmer darkly and do not go out as my children's voices,
now blue incense, taking and exchanging shapes,
mingle above the cherries, pushing, complaining
to commence the day.
They are happy, though it is only
another morning that begins, another last day, and again,
a final meal to share, as cherry pits harmonize,
whitening songs in the white sun,
and the porcelain bowl, my poem, singing what I, what we
will them to sing, with their children's skulls.
Paradise in its day sounded like this.
Darkening cherries were eaten there,
and the pits were thrown away with their songs.
Nothing was designed to last, not even the sun.
Why should I quarrel with that?
Now, orioles flute in the outside spaces, unseen, so near
and falling away.
The children listen.
I listen to their listening as you approach again, only
to complain that I have wandered off bearing your gifts,
your cherries.
So, I return to eat, faithful again.
Cherry pits flow from the porcelain bowl.
They cover the carpet.
They are in my bed.
And now, only cherry trees flutter the field,
drifting into the air, filling the sun
as it blooms red and redder.
I can eat no more.
It is time for school.
The children are quarreling.
Cherry pits and their kisses, orioles and their ears,
join me, be with me.
Hold on.
We have everything to lose."