Fruit Etude

Someone slips you a sheaf

Of poems categorized

As being on aging

And contentment. You turn

A few pages and find

A piece by a poet

Much younger than you are

Coolly celebrating

In precise lusciousness

The ceremonial

Peeling of a grapefruit

As a sweet discipline,

A little emptiness

Each year harder to live

Within / each year harder

To live without. Being

Old, you’re not contented

With this. You’re just tempted

Now and salivating

To go get some citrus

From the fridge, an orange,

Lacking any grapefruit,

To peel and eat to soothe

Your little empty self.