You have to squint these days
to taste the berry
in the blackberries. Still, you eat

even the bad ones.
All because the date
on the package has passed. It’s a morning

for toast, cold in the house.
You want
the low sugar bread with avocado,

sea salt and tomato but they’ll keep
one more day.
On the calendar, in tomorrow’s box,

you write, Avocado toast.
By evening, you’re bullied again
by what feels like religion:

This you must eat now.
That you must let die
a little more.

You know you have saved
enough not to live this way.
You hold the last blackberry

away from your mouth, stare
into its countless lightless
eyes and wait

for what you’ve been raised
to believe
is the proper time to wait.

Poem appeared in Salamander