Christine Sikorski
The Fifteen Minute Raisin
Slide your finger under
the lip of cardboard
to flip the box open.
Pull apart
the inner plastic bag,
noticing how much pressure
the right hand exerts,
how much the left.
Reach in past
the sound of rustling
and choose one.
Place it on a dish before you.
Perhaps, for a brown raisin,
white ceramic.
For golden, a bowl
of translucent green.
Observe the raisin’s gnarls
and the tiny stem
still clinging to its tip.
Stroke it gently with
a finger.
Now lift it
to your nose and
breathe in the scent of withered fruit.
Look again.
How does the smell
compare to the shape?
Place it inside your mouth.
Hold it on your tongue,
first with your mouth open,
then closed.
Take seven deep breaths
of appreciation.
Notice the raisin’s
natural tendencies.
Where does it wish to rest?
Pressed to the roof of the mouth?
Between cheek and gum?
The depression in the centre
of the tongue?
Now, slowly, bite down.
What secret is released?
What moment in the history
of hot vineyards?
What does the sweetness
tell you about your life?
Now, chew.
You decide how.
Page(s) 34-35
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