Still Life With A Grape

A shallow bowl sits off-center on the table
Its antique porcelain painstakingly hand painted
Filled full with fruit just breaching over ripeness
A sunbeam pierces the slit between the gauzy drapes
Briefly brightening a worn tablecloth
Nearly divested of its white and yellow squares
The sunbeam finds in its narrow path
A solitary grape that has fallen to the table
A sacrificial offering, but by whose hand?
The grape is conspicuous in his exile
Bravely facing the sunbeam's embrace
Behind faded flowers and vines
Soft shadows lurk within the wallpaper
Ready to feast when the fruit begins to spoil
The sunbeam rests upon the grape
As his shadow grows to twice, thrice his size
Waiting to devour him on a faded tablecloth
He valiantly fights this battle every evening
While the rest of his kin are wasted
Always to the same end until he tires
His skin, much darker than his blood,
Splits under the crushing embrace of the beam
On a battlefield of white and yellow squares.