What the smallest thing could hold

After the last storm passes,
I find on the deck chair a baby

bell pepper felled by the wind.
It’s shaped like a heart: small

as maybe the heart of a chicken
or something that tried to grow

but stopped short at the limits
set by a body. A friend jokes:

Sell it on eBay— where a price
can be put on a piece of cheese toast

freckled with the silhouette of the Virgin
Mary, or a guinea pig’s miniature suit

of armor and helmet? In 2000, eight people
placed bids for the meaning of life

that a seller claimed to have discovered.
Inside this waxy hollow, how much

would we pay for that kind of promise
inscribed on each of its seeds? Across

the water, another storm spreads
its widest skirts. We look at each other

and wonder how much we could gather
into just one small suitcase each.

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