The Issue of Cranberry Juice by Bruce W NiedtAt the conference, I take my lunch alone,
with a book, at a large round table.
I twist open a bottle of cranberry juice,
return to my book for a minute,
then pick up the bottle again
and give it a vigorous shake.
Released from the confines of the cap
like a liquid genie,
the juice is happy to splash,
and it issues everywhere
on the table, on my lunch,
my book, my clothes, my face.
Puddles of red have formed around me;
juice drips from my nose.
This is not what I would have wished for.
I look up sheepishly, and no one has noticed,
or at least acknowledged that they noticed.
But the warm flush of humiliation
still rises to my face, as if to match
the color of the wayward juice.
I scurry to the mens room,
wash myself off,
grab a handful of paper towels,
run back and mop up the damage,
but still I leave residual stickiness.
That afternoon in a workshop,
the instructor asks us to write,
I forgive myself for
and list everything we can think of
to complete the sentence.
Among all the bigger concerns, I write
in my cranberry-spotted clothes,
I forgive myself for absent-mindedly
spilling juice all over at lunchtime.
On my mountain of issues,
it is only a new pebble.
Yet it feels so good
to kick it down the slope.
09/21/2001 Posted on 09/21/2001 Copyright © 2024 Bruce W Niedt
|