Carolee Sherwood

BREAKFAST

This rainy city
promises me nothing
but I wake

to sun on a Monday.
I have started writing again.
It’s not much, a little something
about the kaleidoscope view
the waitress brings me, a plate
of cut fruit -- watermelon,
pineapple, cantaloupe, honeydew.

Last night I read how
Stafford’s happiness swims
in the lake even when
he’s nowhere near the lake.
Maybe it’s only a body of water, but
it reminds me of the lover
I’ll never keep.

Our mornings are mouths. I kiss
bacon grease off his lips. I taste a life
like no other, salted meat
on his tongue. When he leaves,

a full day of separate ways
comes between us, the divided
hours our chance to be
missing for a while,
our good fortune to meet
each evening as though for the first

time. Come back

to bed and tell me who you are
all over again.

Carolee Sherwood is a painter, mixed-media artist and poet, whose poetry has been published in a number of print and online journals. She co-manages the online poetry project "Big Tent Poetry" and contributes to "Voice Alpha," a blog about reading poetry for an audience.