Delicious Things
After Lee Ann Roripaugh

An afternoon shower
over a mossy green forest
while you are inside safe
sitting by a three-logged fire
that dances to its own crackling music.
The scent of fresh brewing coffee
first thing in the morning
with a stick of cinnamon broken
and soaking in the grounds.
The intoxicating scent of smoke
and rain swirling as one through the air.
Fresh picked raspberries
from the garden, unwashed
and placed on the tongue
still warm and sunbathed.
Did I mention the crackling
of burning wood? But this time at night,
and how it lulls you to sleep,
a head nestled in a clean, soft pillow.
And back to the trees, the ones with yellow leaves
cascading from the canopy like confetti.
There are too many delicious things to name,
and not enough hours in the day to enjoy them all,
and you feel too guilty for all this beauty
when you know someone else
somewhere else
gets none.
Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the author of Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress, 2016), a 2016-2017 Steinbeck fellow and former Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner. She has work published in Acentos Review, CALYX, crazyhorse, and The James Franco Review and is a cofounder of Women Who Submit.