In the summer, when they are $.99 a pound, I tend to scoop cherries up by the handful in a purchase, and eat them, more or less, that way. When they are $6.99 a pound, as they were a month or so ago, or $4.99 as they are now, I choose them carefully, one by one. A month or so ago they were thirty cents each. Now they are fourteen cents each. The price, the availability, the quality – these are all aspects of the different focus. I bought seven cherries. They are arranged on a plate and sit on the table for often admiring. A bunch offers the beauty of bounty. Seven – and diminishing in number – gives the chance to truly see the roundness, the shades of cerise that light draws out, the distinction of individuality. I eat one a day. Slowly and with delight. This last gang would have lasted a whole week except that the final two were joined on a twin stem and when the question of freedom or loneliness popped to mind, the avoidance of loneliness won and I ate them both. Now the empty plate awaits its next inhabitants.