​Kitchen Table, Cezanne, by Laurin Becker Macios

Kitchen Table, by Paul Cezanne (France) 1888-90

​Kitchen Table, Cezanne
 
What I’d like to be rolling in
is fruit, it all so
 
ripe, heaped, unruly
that the linens
 
are stem-kicked, tangled.
A fat pear peers
 
over a big basket’s brink
teetering toward a jug’s
 
O’d mouth. And...what’s that?
a nectarine? nears
 
its scandalous plummet,
the plump sphere of it pinched
 
safely around its pit. Every
juicy orb seems to dream
 
of its own roll and gasp,
being lifted finally
 
by paint-smeared hands, bitten
before having a chance to bruise. 
 
Laurin Becker Macios
 
Laurin Becker Macios's books include Calling Me Home, a Young Adult verse novel forthcoming from Holiday House in 2026, and Somewhere to Go, winner of the 19th annual poetry award from Elixir Press. She lives in Connecticut with her two sons and one delightfully lazy French Bulldog. More at laurinbeckermacios.com.