Some days, only the shapes of what I've done
remain on the tree— Forms wrapped
in freezing rain, their outlines a kind of crystallized
intention even as flesh browns and softens
with rot, leaking through the cracks. Remember
the vibrant reds and yellows, how they freckled
and bloomed into taste on your tongue? We learn
how, even composted, everything is sugar.
It's what both the vulture and crow intuit,
and the maggot in the bin. I am sorry
for the waste, for the ways dumb appetite translates
excess into pain. Still, I want to keep alive the hope
that what remains isn't shroud or elegy; isn't the hull
of what was abandoned but what endured, despite.
