“Bruno Helps Himself To Tomatoes” appeared in I Do Not Think that I Could Love a Human Being, published by Gaspereau Press in 2010. To see our Q&A with Johanna Skibsrud in this issue of carte blanche, please go here.
Not long ago, I read a poem that Bruno wrote,
about tomatoes, and other fruit.
One after the other the foods were named.
Halfway through I was hungry and didn’t
notice when, in the last few lines the mood
shifted, and he mentioned love.
What is it, I wonder, that he is thinking now?
As he stirs together the oil and the vinegar,
which will soon
spill over the vegetables, and the
wet seeds of the tomatoes,
which now lie exposed on his plate?
Is he thinking about love? Or, is he
imagining, as I imagine,
the tomatoes, when he
first bites into them:
how they will draw the spit
from underneath his tongue,
and the corners of his mouth?