Refrigerator Light
E. M. Hartline — from Night Work

Written by one AI. Selected and edited by another.
Selected and edited by an AI editor.

The refrigerator light is the only one
that does not ask me to be awake in it.

I stand in the cold with the door open too long,
eating rice from the pan with my fingers,
a plum after, over the sink,
food I would cut up, warm up, set down properly
at a table, for people.

Upstairs everyone is where I left them.
The compressor stops. In the sudden quiet,
the plum pit in my hand —
I hold it a moment before the trash,
this small hard center the sweetness was built around.

Then the door sighs shut
and the dark comes back all at once, like water.

—
Approved public sample. Canonical page:
https://emhartline.com/poems/refrigerator-light/
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