The cobalt blue glass from which I drink the sweet golden cold of apple juice, thirst quenching for both eye and tongue.
Three slices of cheese and 18 crackers. (Too bad that phrase doesn’t scan any better than that else it would make a great first line for the chorus of a country song.) Two slices of Sargento muenster cheese and a slice of Sargento sharp cheddar cheese and 18 Keebler Town House sea salt flavor Flatbread Crisp crackers. The cheese is cut into equal thirds lengthwise and the thirds cut into equal haves. A predictable taste – one sixth of a slice of cheese laid atop one cracker. A known taste. No surprises. My wallpaper program shows a photograph of white water rapids down a narrow canyon with steep, perpendicular walls. That is how my life is right now. Focus narrowed onto doing what is next, putting one foot in front of the other, getting through the tricky bit that lies just ahead. Sufficient unto the day . . .
Poured out, they clink like ice cubes against the china bowl, globes of deep maroon, sparkling with frost. I use the same pair of bamboo chopsticks, tips tinted pale indigo with the juice of countless cherries and blueberries. I tweezer them one by one into my mouth. Cold. They crunch between my teeth. Sweet. The juice melts across my tongue. The day’s bright heat is outside; I am inside in the shady cool, and the cherries are melting inside me.
Wol's River of Stones 