Mary Grace Mangano

Imperishability

     “She says, 'But in contentment I still feel

     The need of some imperishable bliss.'”

                                                           –Wallace Stevens, “Sunday Morning”

Inside the man-made icy air, the pear

Is kept beside the bread and wine, sits square

Upon a top-most shelf of foggy glass.

She moves some things around and to the back.

They’re covered in an artificial dew

That won’t evaporate or pearl on shoots

Of grass to help it grow. They might expire.

She wonders: if I eat this, will I die?

This too-ripe fruit was plucked out of a box.

She slices it and rips the sticker off.

The other half she wraps in plastic film.

She’ll finish it tomorrow afternoon.

Although a little brown and bruised, the fruit

Juice fills her mouth, and it will do for now—

At least until she hears her stomach growl,

Reminding her of unfed dreams, that dull

But nagging ache for something more than this,

To satisfy the reason to exist.

She might be one of many who will die

From lack of hope, the killer of long life.

She cuts the bread with a serrated knife

And wonders: how does anyone survive?

Mary Grace Mangano is a poet, writer, and professor. Her poetry has been published in Modern Age, Literary Matters, Mezzo Cammin, and The Windhover, among others, and her essays and reviews appear in places such as Plough, Comment, and Front Porch Republic. She lives in New Jersey.