I could live in the supermarket for days, doing nothing
but smelling the ripe pears,
leafing through the lettuce,
watching boys in green aprons stack loose spinach
on top of a rack.
 
Their fragrant roots smelling of far-away farms,
memory of worms, and those who worked the dirt.
Tending the weeds that became
the salads and seasoning of pasta and picnic
where boys lift their long necks upward
into the sun, their faces bright as God’s
after he saw the earth was green.
 
I want to live in the aliveness of these cabbages
peeling back their leafy masks to rain,
walk the aisles chewing
the seeds of the strawberries, talking into the ears of the corn.
Touching the soft flesh of the peach and papaya.
 
I put my thumbs into the skin of strangers,
the strangeness giving way, the continents exploding
against my fingers, smelling the way
the lemon’s soft rind holds its history of citrus.
 
I pick one up and thump it hard on the head.
The deep round sound it makes, as though a pink
monastery bell were ringing inside, over a wet village
where people lift their eyes to a sky
filling with music, and mysterious color
and a summer light that never ends.