by Meg Yardley

It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!

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1. You need a sharp-pointed spoon.
You hunt through the bins at Goodwill,
settling spoons into each others’ hollows,
counting out sets of rose-trellised forks
you don’t need, training your eye
to seek out something serrated.

2. You hollow the pulp out of each section.
You leave the membranes intact.

3. You didn’t set out to eat a grapefruit;
they just started arriving on your doorstep weekly.
Your partner makes a face when you offer
the coral-colored juice: it needs sugar.
You delight perversely in that wince, a reminder
of how much sour you can stand.

4. There will be splatter.
You’d better move your daughter’s homework
off the table. The 400-page biography
will go back to the library with its pages speckled,
crisp white paper damp and relaxed.

5. Eating a grapefruit absorbs
attention. You can try to do the crossword
or write a poem about eating a grapefruit
while eating a grapefruit
but soon you find you haven’t filled in a letter
in five minutes, you’re luxuriating in bitter
liquor, this one thing.

6. Yesterday you set some nectarines on the conveyer belt—
the cashier passed them over her scanner, paused
to inhale with half-closed eyes—
but they seem to be gone so quickly.
Only the grapefruit—its untidy treatment,
its yielding flesh,
its bright and biting flavor—
only the grapefruit lingers.

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Meg Yardley lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her poetry and short fiction have recently appeared in publications including Salamander, Cagibi, SWWIM Every Day, Mom Egg Review, and the Women’s Review of Books.

by Meg Yardley

“The rovers were designed to last for 90 days on the martian surface.”
- NASA website, Mars Exploration Rovers

See red: read heat
even as cold cracks the glass
face of the apparatus.

Although there is no scientific consensus on how
to measure absence or the history of absence,
send vapor samples from craters for testing.

Collect soil under the unmathematical rumble
of volcanoes, intervals of thick ash,
table mountains interred in winter.

Searching for liquid, find it all frozen
at the poles. What a relief –
to cease flowing, to calcify, to become
unmoved. To wash hands with ice.

Down cliff sides, with spiral radials
absorbing shock from spokes,
with cleats for traction, roll
over butterscotch terrain and rust,
magnetic dust, chaos in the canyons.

Drill where you can, until
the sand traps your wheels. Then

you're on your own.

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Meg Yardley lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in publications including SWWIM, Bodega Magazine, Cagibi, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, and the Women’s Review of Books.

by Meg Yardley

1. You need a sharp-pointed spoon.

You hunt through the bins at Goodwill,

settling spoons into each others’ hollows,

counting out sets of rose-trellised forks

you don’t need, training your eye

to seek out something serrated.

2. You hollow the pulp out of each section.

You leave the membranes intact.

3. You didn’t set out to eat a grapefruit;

they just started arriving on your doorstep weekly.

Your partner makes a face when you offer

the coral-colored juice: it needs sugar.

You delight perversely in that wince, a reminder

of how much sour you can stand.

4. There will be splatter.

You’d better move your daughter’s homework

off the table. The 400-page biography

will go back to the library with its pages speckled,

crisp white paper damp and relaxed.

5. Eating a grapefruit absorbs

attention. You can try to do the crossword

or write a poem about eating a grapefruit

while eating a grapefruit

but soon you find you haven’t filled in a letter

in five minutes, you’re luxuriating in bitter

liquor, this one thing.

6. Yesterday you set some nectarines on the conveyer belt—

the cashier passed them over her scanner, paused

to inhale with half-closed eyes—

but they seem to be gone so quickly.

Only the grapefruit—its untidy treatment,

its yielding flesh,

its bright and biting flavor—

only the grapefruit lingers.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Meg Yardley lives with her family in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she is a school-based social worker. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Hanging Loose, Rattle, the East Bay Review (Pushcart nominated), AMP, Non-Binary Review, Leveler, Right Hand Pointing, and the Peauxdunque Review. She has a bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature and a master’s degree in Social Work.