still life telling its own stories
the story was supposed to have a twist at the end
but all it had were some half-baked ideas
and out-of-place exclamation points
and so he went back and reworked the narrative
thinking the story could be salvaged by removing
the exclamation points and replacing them
with a series of question marks
on the kitchen table was a round wicker basket
sometimes filled with bananas
other times apples or lemons and limes
maybe a super ripe avocado or mango
and then it hit him that the story had
nothing to do with punctuation
but rather uneaten fruit dying to be noticed
in someone else’s nondescript world
november two thousand seventeen
copyright j matthew waters
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