The challenge is to focus on one thing that matters, for instance this blueberry muffin. Yesterday I had for breakfast a piece of fruit and several cups of coffee. I sat chittering like an insect and picking at the white pith on the inside of the fruit’s rind. The sweet acidic sharpness of the fruit was comforted by the bland pith like bones of the hand warmed by the soft lining of a glove. I could see the veins and the white fibrous connective tissue beneath the skin. I could see the way these things fit together.
This brings me back to the muffin. It is a blueberry muffin, and it sits there taunting me. I hope that the soft crumble of its flesh holds sweet sharp berry ink. I hope it never ends being eaten. I finish it in under a minute and not much later wonder if there is another muffin sitting downstairs on the kitchen counter. I do not wonder that; I know it with a certainty. I know the muffin’s lumpen shape and weight. I know its fluffy scent. What I do wonder is how angry my wife will be should I slink downstairs and take that last one. I think of William Carlos Williams dancing naked in his den. I think of plums.
Matt Comito lives in Los Angeles and tweets @mcombksllr