Memoir

Today I loaded up my car with my favorite collection
of grapes.  I was trying to make the world seem a little
bit different, but then a police officer pulled me over
and asked me for my license and registration.  I don't
have a permit for these grapes, I said.  I am transporting
them over the county line.  Some are poisonous and I
am taking them over to the duck pond to feed the swans.
I mean to watch their necks writhe.  He studied the photograph.
I said it was the only one left.  I said the rest have been made
into counterfeit likenesses of myself.  I said I no longer know
what I look like, and nowadays when I look in the mirror
I see someone else.  Someone with rose tinted sunglasses
pulled up along side of me.  He spoke to the officer as if he
had known him since childhood.  As if he was setting up an alibi
for a recent murder.  I sneezed very hard and a drop of blood beaded
up around my nostril.  I was praying it didn't fall because that would
have been the end of me.  I felt frail.  I no longer had the courage
to look at my grapes or say anything about how wrong it was of me
to think I could just load them up in my car and ride around with them.
How utterly immature of me to think this way going to be a joyride.
The world of adolescent foibles flooded back to me as fleshy
red and green translucent orbs. As they hit one by one
I felt emptier and emptier.  The man in the car smiled
at my sudden pallor.  I knew what he was thinking.  How clear and simple things
are when one breaks them down. But then like a character in a Sanskrit play
I lifted my head with a renewed appreciation.
 How really lucky I had been, how seemingly endless and happy.
How healthy too! And look at all these grapes!  Who was this man,
and what did he owe me except to bring me towards the rim of misery.
The officer looked at my photograph and then back at me
with mystery as mystery broke involuntarily across my face.