.

fruitcake



learning things
        like plums;
        when to eat them
        to get the best flavor
        even if they don't look so fine

        like strawberries;
        that look better than they taste
        and usually cause some horrific reaction
        much like ideals, in that regard.

I wonder
        is truth
        or Truth
        or this carefully peeled,
        rarely unflawed,
        never-quite-ripe banana?

the scholars
        wander the orchards of Eden
        plucking truth, beauty, and art from the branches
        and scattering a cautionary pesticide of happiness in front
        like petals ominously placed before newlyweds

        (and when most of us are worried of
        things that spoil your food
        rather than
        things that spoil your mood)--

the cynics
        float airily above
        scorning fruit and the essential vitamins

the dreamers
        curl around an essence of something
        --a scrap of rind, a seed, a taste
        offal of Eve and God's son.
        poor wretches; they gather trembling with hunger
        around the last bit of it left--
        and they are too chickenshit to eat it.
        their bony, membranous wings
        twitch and marrow-shiver in the weak light.

learning plums
        and refrigerators;
        with the secrets of molding food
        and the possible corruption of milk
        and even--
                the horror!
                solid, fine-looking papayas
                rotten to their black-seeded core
                mangoes, dripping rancid juice
                and an orange,
                a vivid, bright, circumspect orange
                left to the unholiness of flies.

call me a crisp tart
        but to those of us grounded
        with our peaches or nectarines in half-land
        it is enough to take the damn apple for what it is
        and bite
        chew
        swallow.
        we have nothing else to eat.