Learning How to Eat, Again

by Leila Einhorn

originally published in In Praise of Despair (Beyond the Veil, 2025)

It is peach season and I am a failure.
The fruit I picked at the grocer’s is overripe
and cannot be used to make cobbler.
I stand in a lightless morgue
and mourn the sunken globes
on the kitchen counter.

Upstairs, my parents’ hands
form prayers that imprint
on their skulls.
Above my parents’ hands,
the moon grows pale
against an asbestos of stars.
The grocer is closed,
peach season almost over.
I am always doing these things.

A voyeur,
I cradle the bruised fruit
to the lukewarm sink.
Halved and yolking,
the peaches blush.
My thumbs emerge amniotic.

Faith’s anesthetic is beginning to thin
as my parents stir from above.
The pull of the moon grows stronger
as it suffocates on an infinite sky.
I too suffocate on its envy,
turning to wipe peaches from lips
and quake at the way I caressed
their tender imperfections.