Extremely Always Really Smiling

Extremely Always Really Smiling

After washing dishes at the restaurant,
home is sanctuary.

Our table piled with kitchen clutter
serves me as a koan –

A maple sugar man, hands folded
over his heart,

lies beside an orange and nectarine,
his head missing.

“What good is a man without a head?”
A sunflower and

a purple cosmos drink from a clear vase
radiantly.

Next morning, after my wife leaves
for work,

I find only the orange and the maple
sugar man

now minus shoulders and hands,
all heart –

the bite mark like a huge smile fills the room
and beyond.

– Kanan Roberts.

——-

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