Pears

Northridge Review, Vol. 5.2 (1987)

Suzanne Ghiglia

They sat in their sack between us like miniature
children on the bench seat.
We didn't eat them
or talk about them
but instead pointed out rocks and rivers
or drove and drove with no sound
from Four Corners up to Grand Junction.

We had seen them when we gassed up the Buick.
Gold, pink, cheerful, matronly, crowded in the cart
we could practically taste them in the air
it was cold October
I'd never seen any like that.
We had to have them.

I was scared on the curves and on the long flat roads
not of the confident, unchanging map,
but of the horizon of your face.
We were just empty space, whirling atoms
sucked to the earth by gravity only
but for those pears.

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