The Plum's Heart
I've climbed in trees
To eat, and climbed
Down to look about
This world, mouth red
From plums that were
Once clouds in March
-rain I mean, that |
Pitiless noise against -
Leaves and branches.
Father once lifted me
Into one, and from
A distance I might
Have been a limb,
Moving a little heavier
Than most but a limb
All the same. My hands
Opened like mouths,
The juice running
Without course down
My arm, as I stabbed
For plums, bunched
Or half-hidden behind
Leaves. A bird flittered
From there, a single
Leaf cutting loose,
And gnats like smoke
Around a bruised plum.
I climbed searching
For those red globes,
And with a sack filled,
I called to Father
To catch-Father
Who would disappear
Like fruit at the end
Of summer, from a neck
Wound some say-blood
Running like the juice
Of these arms. I
Twisted the throat
Of the sack, tossed
It, and started down
To Father, his mouth
Already red and grinning
Like the dead on their
Rack of blackness.
When I jumped, he was
Calling, arms open,
The sack at his feet
For us, the half-bitten,
Who bring on the flies.
Structure
50 lines · 2 stanzas