Peaberry

Anna Schulte

photo credit: @josephfrecker

There is a green stalk I pluck
each morning when I wake up
and I carry my green stalk to you
and I ask for you to speak to it.
You don’t have to. Any kind
of gesture is fine—coffee, cream,
a question asked and answered.
You speak of coffee as though it might
be listening—Terroir, terroir.
Notes of thick, fluffy nougat.
Two beans to every fruit, except peaberries—
they have only one bean.
Here, look, feel. 

I hold the peaberry awkwardly—
how long is too long to stare into my palm?
Then you ask me to be the teacher,
an equal exchange. Who are you reading?
You write down the name of my favorite poet,
a name from my private world
of rituals— of cups of coffee heated
and reheated on the stove,
of procrastination and tears standing
in my slippers, of books read drunk
in the doorway, since the windows are too small
to let the light in after sunset.  

I am perched like this, barefoot and my body
curled to the shape of a reluctant letter V
(feet on one side of the doorframe and back
against the other) reading Life Studies
when my neighbor Mrs. Jupiter 
is wheeled away in a gurney.  

These nights spent reading
alone in the doorway, and it’s scary
talking to you
even from this distance.
First feelings, the actual taste of something—
so fast when it comes.
The instant hinges, then releases—
nothing added, nothing explained,
nothing subtracted.

photo credit: @johnnygembitsky

Anna Schulte lives in New Orleans, where she works as a barista and musician. She received her BA in English writing and French from Loyola University New Orleans. Her flash fiction has appeared in Paper Darts. You can find her on Instagram @annasun_occasionally.