Editor’s Choice

This small hunger

    for Karen

    by M.E. Hope

On the third floor of the hospice you feed

your mother six Concord grapes, her favorite.

She asks you to forgive her her failings

and you turn ever so slightly to bring

a spoonful of water to her lips. She doesn’t look

at you anymore, she looks about the room

and asks if the two men and the woman

are friends; you’re the only one who has

been here since the shift nurse left. You

say there is nothing to forgive. What child

continues to hold blame or regret or anger?

You ask if she needs anything else. Her small

hunger now fills only the lip of a teaspoon, a single

digit of nourishment: a lone plum, three Cheerios

and the lovely grapes, peeled and naked

that rest for just a moment on her tongue:

thanks and forgiveness enough for whatever

trespass has been done.

© 2014  M.E. Hope

M.E. Hope currently lives, and writes, in Belgium.  A recipient of a Fishtrap Fellowship, Playa Residency and Individual Artist Fellowship from the Oregon Arts Commission she spends her days watching the amazing Belgian Blue (Blanc Bleu Belge) cattle and searching for the perfect cheese.