Jacqueline Karp Gendre
Victoria Plums
From the kitchen window I can’t clearly make them out;
the dark green shiny leaves protect them well,
though, if I cross the garden and approach them quietly,
they are there all right,
delicate, pale green testicles,
blushing gently down the longer side,
still firm, cool to my touch.
Last year, uprooted as they were,
they failed to keep their grip past June,
and dropped, the size of dried-up damsons,
here on my parched un-English lawn.
This year, things are going better.
We have had more rain,
and yesterday, I counted thirty-one of them.
Plus two the neighbour’s child hurled right across the grass
when he came round to find his boomerang.
Brown paper bags of sun-warmed fruit
by Somerset roadsides, ten p. a pound, car-guzzled.
That’s what I want.
Or Taunton tea-time:
Aunt Lil, the one who won the music prize,
and Naina talking to the vicar’s wife
in the long brick-walled Crescent garden.
Lips on pink flecked skin,
teeth sunk in firm yellow flesh,
the sharp stone sliding out with ease.
Till this year, I have made do
with quetsch and mirabelle,
been European.
Till this year.
Page(s) 60
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