Cleaning Out the Fridge
 

by Martha Silano

Mornings a white-fleshed peach, noon the illustrious pomegranate, evenings
all Syrah and chardonnay, but now you’re home and must face it—

a year’s worth of sticky, globby, dripping maple syrup, of olives swirling
in churned up seaweed, of the great many weeks of thawing thigh leakage.

Your time to fill a silver pot with vinegar and suds, unwrap the cantaloupe dotted
with lichen, miniature marshmallows, your time the shriveled nectarine

like an old, old man, his boring stories no one wants to hear, not even the raisins
swimming in beer. On your knees, you could say you’re visiting

Amy and Lou, who left their barbeque sauce on the door then moved to Tempe.
Staring down the peanut butter smears, you’re back with Wes,

owner of the watermelon seed in the far left corner. What about this hated task
do you hate most? Emptying half empty bottles of flattened tonic,

or finding the sliver of carefully wrapped sliced turkey slipped beneath the crisper
long before we were even thinking of turned-back clocks?

Coming across the jar of Brewer’s yeast you said you’d judiciously, religiously spoon
each morning, or the precious unused bottle of flax oil gone way, way past

past-due? Your son shoots by, shooting Windex all over the little bit
not rotten, not annoyingly, stubbornly, gunked.

You take this as your answer.