Please Print

by Bridget Cross

From now on, I only want to remember
that part of you that pauses
in our kitchen, knife hanging
over rows of unknowing asparagus,
parsnip, and green tumbler, iceless.
For this second, we mean nothing
to nobody. We suspend somewhere
between whole and sliced up.
For one breath, the wasted bits
I bring you are enough and our over-
grown garden reeks of paradise.
From here on out, let this be all
I can have: this eclipse when the hunt
is called off, when we are done
with drinking. This perfect dust bowl
where, even as the cabinets go cold
and the bottles drip dry, we do not
run. We do not starve.

Bridget Cross is in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College and burns easily. This is her first contribution to Dispatch Coltura.

(c) Copyright 2002 Bridget Cross