Watching milk pour into little
ziploc bags with bananas and
Cheerios and fights over which
fruit better invokes the feeling
of sunrise, of home and
morning eye crust and blown
curtains in summer breeze.

Strawberries don't stain dresses
as much as blackberries from
a friend's farm in upstate
New York or Eastern Washington
or some ranch in coastal Venezuela
with coffee and sugar smells
stuck on sticky skin and licking
juice from sweet fingertips
right before it starts to rain.

When February sun peeks
through cumulus clouds after
a five-day downpour, you turn
your face to mine and proclaim
that the world may be beautiful and youthful, after all.