Poem: Curator of Fruit

Curator of Fruit

— Isabella Dalla Ragione, arboral archaeologist

It is the old women I love
        most, the remembered
piles of pear, plum, apple,
        cherry, peach, medlar,
& quince that they cellared
        beneath their nuptial beds,
where it was cool. How I want
        to possess the smell
& taste of all that's past,
        to graft scion & rootstock,
bind them tight. I desire
        life itself, to turn my land
heavy with musked
        orbs of imperfect fruit.
A rutted road thrusts over
        potato fields to the Fiorentina
tree, black-freckled pear,
        its bark split & gowned
in a lichen intricate white.
        The life I've chosen is not
my own. I know that many
        could say the same: the trees,
blushing old women.
        It is no cause for complaint.
Marriage is a stony bed,
        is want. Inedible flesh
bagged in its spotted skin,
        the sap's inexplicable rise
to sky, & early morning, love
        heavy with the smell of winter
pears, firm & crisp & cold.

— Rebecca Dunham