The deliveries came into the
kitchen with the sunlight.
First the ice, hauled from the
wagon and placed in the box.
I took out all the food
replaced it and rearranged it.
Then the eggs and milk and
cheese and butter. I smiled
at the horses then balanced
the daily dairy through the
foyer and down the long hall
then opened the icebox latch
with my knee (bruise), re-
arranging, setting these
perishables in place.
Just in time, I'd gathered
the scissors and knives
for the grinder man's
whistle.
Before the doctor woke, I had
gathered all the coins from
the house money jar and walked
to the Park Avenue market.
I filled my bags with soaps,
vinegar, oils, cleansers,
paper, pen nibs, ink, and
polish; and with just a penny
or two leftover—the first spare
change in three years—bought
myself four small sweet plums
because I knew the taste of them
only as a girl.
(I labored long over the thought
of purchasing plums, I could
not remember ever buying anything
solely for myself. It seemed a
wicked, wonderful thing to do.)
I did not know the weight of the
bags until I let go of them
near the pantry.
Carefully I unwrapped the plums,
pumped the water to rinse them,
set them in a plain blue bowl,
and placed them between the
cottage cheese and the eggs.
My raw hands prepared the skillet
and the stove, sliced bread,
stirred the cereal, scrambled
eggs, and placed his toast on
the table in the dining room.
He was sated and gone before
I sat to nibble on dregs of
spongy eggs.
I dried the last fork, and mixed
the starch for his shirts
placing the picture of perfect
ripe round plums on the empty
slate in my mind; purple and
red pulled taut across lobes of
firm flesh.
I'd hung the laundry (rinsed corsets
and all) and fretted over drying
time in the husky New Jersey
humidity.
The perspiration beaded on my
brow as I pressed his clothes
and thought of the cold dew
that would make the four fruits
glisten like the red wheel-
barrow under the clothesline
in the backyard.
I fed all the chickens except the
white one which I swung by
the neck, plucked, and prepared
for dinner.
I was doing the darning when he
walked to the porch with his
newspaper.
The needle slipped when the front
door slammed, and as I sucked the
pain of my fingerpad I thought
of the blood hues inside the
plums and the hard seed
in the fruit's center that
would play with my tongue all
the next day and stave off heat's
thirst.
I made dinner, cleaned dishes, brought
in the laundry with the clothespins,
pressed shirts, folded pants, and
hung them away in the closets as
the last sliver of natural light
slipped into the moonófull and
cold and glowing and round like
the plums
that would have been my breakfast
had I not fallen asleep before he did.
In the morning
I found the
note (on a
leaf of
prescription
pad). I
would have
cried, but
I could
only wax
furniture.