were well above my picking reach,
small this year but wet with warm
red meat precariously contained by purpling skin,
bursting at the thought of teeth
or on them – such fullness in a fruit,
and eager, I couldn’t help but fill myself
with eager plums off the tree,
wondering on Father’s Day,
the first since coroner's report proved
absence of eagerness, despair of meat,
if more plums would have helped—
even one to burst its summer
on your winter life.
even the summer plums know
to store their warmth, waiting for
the tug of time and gravity forcing
elegiac falls and then the glorious burst—
I shook the tree,
putting my whole weight to the task,
red meat of wet plums running warm and sweet
down my face, barrage after barrage,
until the tree could yield no more.
June 17, 2012
Asheville, NC
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