Halving a Peach After Our Argument
Paring knife held steady,
the wrist cranking an unbroken
circle then firmly twisting
two halves free just so,
the unwilling stone clinging
intact to one half, like a wordless
rift, my fingers tugging
the reluctant ragged seed,
until the alabaster culprit
relents, no match for my rigor,
banished to a swell of coffee
grinds and glossy flyers
from yesterday’s mail,
the slender knife never
released, slicing crescents now
letting them glide like small
coronals into morning’s melamine
bowl, spooning the soft curves
of light upward to my parted
lips, finding myself hungrier
than I knew, the peach more sour,
my grudge a luxurious gilding.
Sandra Fees is the author of The Temporary Vase of Hands (Finishing Line Press, 2017) and served a term as Berks County Poet Laureate (2016-2018). Her work has recently appeared in The Blue Nib, Kissing Dynamite, and Sky Island Journal.
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