poem

 Cashews

Is this glass bowl of cashews

A snack or just ambient scenery?

I never know what can be touched.

I have fine candles that have never been lit.

My favorite shoes are always racked and

My time here has become the joke

I’ve practiced telling so much

I no longer find it funny, myself.

But I’ve learned to tell it well

And that’s the difference

Between the seed and its shell

Between the silence and the sound,

The pause before everyone laughs.

9/21/21