Apricot Press

When you don't know how to bear the silence,
the fig, heavy from the absorbed sunshine, falls
with a soft sound of readiness. You are tired
of loneliness but the dog follows you outside.

It's been a long time since anyone touched you,
but the laundry collected from the string warms
your hands. There is no breeze so the clean sheets
don't resemble sailing, but something much more comfortable,

like a hotel room. You watch hungry donkeys eating
blade by blade while ants carry berries larger
than themselves. Suddenly, you rediscover poetry
like a weed you didn't know was edible.

Nevertheless, you let it grow in the garden.
You liked its fragrance in the evening, its rebellious exuberance,
the stretching of its stems for sunnier spaces.
Now you carefully place it on your tongue.

The surprising tanginess reminds you of the cliffs
where you used to park too close to the edge,
of the mossy hills you once called home,
of the tender spots on your eyelids when you squint.