Last Things

A single piece of fruit
drains all the light from the room,
becomes black and heavy
saturated with the emptiness that surrounds it.
In the hallway
the children’s voices have long gone
and anger flickers somewhere behind my eyes
like a worn socket spluttering in a bulb.
I had always imagined something other than this.
   As the breath grows shallower
as the ear rings in a house of blackness
as the goat path disappears
into cold mist and slippery boulders.
Small things betray us.
The jaw that aches as the oxygen dwindles.
Deep and delicate this depression
as it walks across me into the other world.
At this hour
I am always the one who arrives at the farthest edge,
the dishevelled one who returns,
who has seen rivers flow backwards into the sky.
An eye outside the world looks back.

The fruit of darkness
lies cool and plump in the palm of a girl’s slender hand.
She offers me the last portion,
the first fruit.