Strawberries Occur

Prickly static seems to sprinkle over
everything – like bad artificial
sweetener – sticky, toxic, edgy,

nervous, chemical, as if laced
with amphetamine: comparative calm
beauties of the city summer scene –

its warmth, its blue, its rich stirred brew –
cease to persuade: implode, degrade
and break apart: something’s not right

in the heart: a sickening incitement
which excites a superficial blast lasts
for an instant: guts, and grinds

the air: drains some central substance –
unsuspected marrow in the mind:
the worst of it: you cease to care;

then out of nowhere, strawberries
occur. You slice a handful you had
bought and dump them in a bowl

and coat them with some maple syrup:
sweetness of a kinder gentler sort.
Strawberries regale – for now, prevail.

Precipitating spatters scatter in
and out of bowls, abort and bail,
adhere, dissolve, replace each other –

psychic weather systems: mist,
hail, drought, snowfall. Any moral
you can think of in it? None at all.




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