Because the World is
by Silver Meteor

We are all in the gutter, but some
of us are looking at the stars.

––Oscar Wilde

III.

Today I beg.
I walk down the street where
everyone is busy and
I look around to see what
would Hellie like.

A man near the corner, his face a-light
with excitement and hope,
selling the
best grapes in all of France. Nay,
the entire world, try one
and see
for yourself. He
calls me over to him, and hands me one
of the purple kind. I like the red ones
best. How does it taste? Like a
sunshining morning, full of
the blue sky and sweet like
the finest wine?

Oh yes, I tell him, and
pocket a bunch of the red ones
once he jovially
reports to the crowd
what I said.
I am gone when he turns back, and
so are three brushes of grapes.

He will have learned that
it is best to sell what
you've got in silence, instead of
so happy.
It seems like anyone will take from a happy man.

The green ones are sour, and
I save those for Hellie. And I suck the skin off the red ones,
while the fruit turns
to jelly in my mouth,
something sweet and strange.