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Sport 26: Autumn 2001
Figs
Figs
Figs do not grow on trees on my side of the water,
no perfume tells the tale outside.
First there were paintings
of delicately placed leaves,
then, writing which hung lives
from a fig tree's branches.
Later, I read of my grandmother eating
a large dish of exquisite small green figs.
She was leaning from a window in Italy
listening to church bells sound.
My first Italian fig is served at breakfast
disguised in green-brown skin
wet and cool from the tree.
I eat it slowly with a silver fork.
The next, months later, is sweeter,
plucked by my sun-darkened arm.
I squeeze it open with fingers
and devour the pink flesh.