Fruit – poem
Fruit.
My memories of fruit
Gleaming and shining with the
Vibrancy of crayon colours
Are betrayed
By irregular indentations and bruises,
Soft patches that ooze,
Ripe but flirting with rotten,
This blemished skin
The final and definite demarcation
Of each little insular character.
I enter with the violence of a gravedigger,
Intent to exhume the hidden, inner delights.
What fingertips and nails can’t claw open and rip
Knives will do.
I embrace their embalmed flesh in
The dark and silent chamber of the tongue
And there, each one, can come alive
On the terms of their own flavour
Finally able to express themselves.
Pomegranate seeds huddled like bats
Against waxy skin that cracks when ripped
Taste almost sardonic
Acknowledging the triteness of the world,
Thinly sweet, self-assured.
Pineapple’s thick and easy juice,
Familiar as friends’ throaty laughter
Induces relaxation in
Trills of springing sweet relief.
The expense of excavation grows
As the mound of discarded remains,
Damp and sticky, struggles upwards,
A slick rainbow of juice running down the
Knife strokes in the chopping board.
I see it as seeds crack between my teeth.
Passion fruits sluggish frogspawn
Squeals when bitten but
Any bitter reproach peters out into the
Dull throbbing of a tropical remembrance.
Mango flesh offers the most resistance
But with reluctance offers the
Soft fragrance of pine needles.
Its centre stone eventually lies
Fizzing in my mouth and
When bitten hard and pried open
Reveals a hollow compartment
And there within
In the brown and white
Of soil and bone I find
Its seed of potential,
Slightly curled like a bean or foetus.
I have achieved audience with fruit
And discard the inedible pulp
But the memory of their taste is
Still on my lips,
Their ghostly giggles
Faintly ring
In the pit of my mouth.
It is the price of such
Soft, deliberate murder.
