Tuesday’s Coup de Main

Standing over the sink, laboring over newly bought grapes, washing the pesticides away, I suddenly find pests crawling not to the surface of the fruits, but to the surface of my mind. The pests of the past that hid within me engulf the present, becoming all my vision, when I am simply just washing grapes. Water runs idly down the grapes in my hand. The grapes in my hand, in the present. The present. I return to the task at hand and wash both the pesticides and the pests inside down the sink.