Craig Arnold: "Meditation on a Grapefruit"

To wake when all is possible
before the agitations of the day
have gripped you
                    To come to the kitchen
and peel a little basketball
for breakfast
              To tear the husk
like cotton padding        a cloud of oil
misting out of its pinprick pores
clean and sharp as pepper
                             To ease
each pale pink section out of its case
so carefully       without breaking
a single pearly cell
                    To slide each piece
into a cold blue china bowl
the juice pooling       until the whole
fruit is divided from its skin
and only then to eat
                  so sweet
                            a discipline
precisely pointless       a devout
involvement of the hands and senses
a pause     a little emptiness

each year harder to live within
each year harder to live without

"Meditation on a Grapefruit" by Craig Arnold. Published in Poetry (October 2009).

Image credit: "Peeled Grapefruit," oil painting on hardboard, by Faith Te (originally color).