Les Empiristes

the only way out is in

—Junot Díaz

After lunch you’re pleading

don’t sweep away the

whits from the picnic

table. Leave them for the

finches. They love the somber

crumble of pumper-

nickel.

I never told you I

was forced to chow it down

when we were kids.

No jam. No butter.

Raw in every sense.

I retched for half

an hour after that.

Tomorrow you’ll go solo,

eating peanuts from a bag

inside the woods, leaving bits

of patterned shell

along the path, not to tease the

squirrels with their motif,

gauging how they’ll take

a broken vow, but hopeful I will

follow, remarking we are found

when we are lost, the ground a

wounded sky.

Try a handstand by the

trees. Our palms

were the soles of our

feet and we never knew it.

Tomorrow

we’ll be dormant above

the stars. These lanterns

of the sea. If we hunger

and double back, taste

the skosh of shells

I’ve left behind. Who’s

to say what is and isn’t food?

Andreas Gripp

October 2, 2025

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