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.

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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.