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Still life

A bone china bowl half-full of fruit,

not composed, but accidentally

nice enough to notice. So I do:

The port-wine of the Anjou pear,

the looming green like an aurora

or Bhopal chlorine haze beneath 

the waxy skin of the Yukon Golds. 

We really should eat those

before they turn much further. The lemon

is eager. The apple is constant. In spite

of a reputation for patience, I find

this bunch of bananas willful

and obscure. Beside the bowl,

a bone-white cat, in the sunspot

between caution and napping

where so much of a day

must be spent. She has tucked

her body into the shape

of a bowl, as if to mock a species

that worships its food rather than

killing it, or perhaps just to imply

with savage cunning, Nobody here 

but us bowls. Now put food inside me.