Sonnet 8 Poem by Anthony Parker

Yesterday in the produce aisle I stopped,
could smell you all around me. Watermelon
and plum scents met, hands clasping, palms
pressed together—like a face and a wall, silent lips

shaping prayers against stone—and bowed: you were
in the air. I could pick up an avocado and hold it
with the same care given to your ripe thigh—place
a seedless grape in my mouth, let it bloom, explode

on my tongue, bleed like rivers that open their veins and drain
them into an ocean. Standing, eyes closed, near the cantaloupes—
weaving your smell between the infinite number of water
droplets vaporized into the mist raining down on lettuce
and cilantro—trying to breathe you like oxygen,
suddenly floating.