and there are
the loved ones. The loved ones
are in the world until they are not.
The world empties with the loss
of just one. The others cannot
make the world whole again,
but the world can fill itself with
grief, heavy and wholly dark.

And then one day there is an apple—
ripe and red and sweet—and you
can’t help noticing, and the apple
and the taste of the apple fill
the world. Asked, at that
moment, to define the world,
you would say, apple, not grief
or emptiness. In a short while,

the apple is gone; darkness
returns. Perhaps next time
it will be a frosty grape,
a deep purple plum, the scent of lily
or pine that takes over the world,
or soup simmering or
Dragon Pearl Jasmine unfurling
in a teapot with a cracked lid,

and, after awhile, the world
is whole enough again to hold
emptiness without collapsing,
so that when another is lost,
and another, and the world is wholly
dark again, and darker, you cling to
the knowledge that an apple, one day,
will appear.