Parts and Labor

by Rob Rice

Days when the conversation among loved ones isn’t even that good

Or hovers on the awkward edge of bad

But still we’re relaxed

Splitting cherries slowly so they look like

Georgia O’Keefe’s corpus callosum

Pondering what is the common ancestor of all fruits

What huge fleshy compromise

Pteridophyte hidden intermediate

With swollen knots and melon’s bulbous soft-sitting

In the umbrella’d ferncradle it’s antioxidant tinged

Among rotting other ones

Vomiting ambitious seed volumes

Every one a small uprising

Evidence of plans to take over the forest