Sharing a clementine with my darling

A little poetry, inspired by our resident food thief..

My feet are resting,
one on the other,
on an ottoman, and I can feel
my torso sinking into the leather chair.
In this rare moment of early afternoon peace,
I begin to unpeel a clementine, among the last in the box,
as the few that remained were growing soft
and possibly rotten.

As I eat pieces of the orange fruit, my daughter,
who is one, tramples over and blurts out a series of noises,
which I have learned to interpret that she wants my food.
But I cannot give the child pieces of clementine because
under my supervision my son nearly choked on an orange slice
when he was her age.

So, like a robin feeding its young with regurgitated worms, I set aside
pebble-sized bits of fruit that I’ve already chewed, and place them in a line
onto the arm of my chair. She stands beside me, knowing all along that I would do this,
and she happily plucks each tiny clump of food in between her increasingly sticky fingers,
satisfied for the moment that I’ve obliged her.