Ruth and Boaz Dine
Grapes, sweet and cool,
ornament the table.
Blue-veined cheeses
on wooden slats,
rosemary and garlic.
Bread with gold-toasted
crust, a soft-melt
inside. Olive oil
pooling in bowls,
gleaming eyes.
She bites a pear,
breaks the skin.
She tears the bread,
dips and dips again.
I would like to be
the bread in her
hands: warm,
broken for her,
sustaining.
Renee Emerson is the author of the poetry collection Keeping Me Still (Winter Goose Publishing, 2014). Her poetry has been published in Tar River Poetry, Boxcar Poetry Review, The Indiana Review and others; she lives and writes in Arkansas.
Photo: Jon Shave/Flickr, under CC by 2.0 license.