Three Weeks

She made it when she came to visit,

some kind of sauce, I still haven't risked it,

left it in plastic with her name

written in pen, like a claim.

Three weeks have passed and still it sits,

in the back where I can quit

pretending I know what's inside,

where the rot can hide.

Today I reached for milk by chance,

my hand brushed the container, broke my trance,

and even sealed, the smell came through—

sweet at first, then something new.

Something fermented, something gone,

something that's been wrong

for three weeks while I looked away,

while I let it decay.

I pushed it back into the dark,

back where I don't have to spark

the courage to open it, to see

what's become of her gift to me.

It will sit there until she calls,

until she asks how it all

tasted, if I made it mine,

and I'll stall and say I'm fine,

not yet, I'll say, and she will know

the rest of what I can't say low,

the part about the gap between

what she made and what I mean,

the way I'm afraid to open

anything she's given, hoping

it will just disappear,

that the obligation will clear,

that I won't have to face

the rot in this plastic case,

the proof that I let something good

go bad, the way I always do, understood.