blue raspberries
by
sasha weiss
sasha weiss writes and draws, mostly poems, comics, and essays. he has chapbooks and comics out or forthcoming from various presses including bottlecap, microcosm, and pork belly. he's also an academic, to the extent that that's possible these days.
from blue raspberries
eating cherries, waiting for the storm
it's monsoon season in the high desert and the surgery's two weeks from today. in 14 days i'll be back from albuquerque, tucked into bed. a little less scared, a lot more drugged, but for now all i can do is go through the motions of last time, staring at my phone or watching storm clouds close in on santa fe, struggling to leave the house or remember what day it is. but i recall that you come to town tomorrow, and that's something worth leaving my room for, worth cleaning up for, so i picked up the dead flies from the shower floor today, and now i'm eating cherries from the tree in the yard. they're not quite ripe yet, still sharp with yellow showing through with fine dots of red-stick n' poke or chromatophores on cuttlefish-always changing color. i picked the cherries quickly, not wanting to be at the top of the ladder when the clouds broke and the thunder came. it still hasn't rained, but they look so real in grandma's desert colored dishware, shining yellow-pink in the coffee cup, seeds drying out on the saucer.
