I think often of the apricots & shallots
that I diced in your kitchen last year
with a knife you had placed
on the counter
that i pickled in a glass
bowl of vinegar
and I wonder at the sticky
particularness of moments and of half
disintegrated fruits and
of new york november
dusk which swam
brilliantly around us
and the same way I am sure about
fruit and how
it portends pleasure
or about the sharp scent of
shallots or the sharp
knife of time I am
sure about the lines
between the apricots
sweetly separated
from their skins
and the close-to-the-surfaceness
of me in that season
between the circles
of their bodies changing
in the vinegar
and the ways that we
ourselves have changed around
each other
between the work of knives
and hands and
days
between
transformation and
preservation
I think often of those apricots & shallots
which I diced in your kitchen
last year
of their surrender to the will
of change
sweet and acrid at the same
