Small Fruit

Dec 24 2011

Small fruit

is intense,

sweet tart crisp.

Does not expend itself

in the gaudy glitz

of bigness,

showing-off.

Like a beautiful girl

who let herself go,

the ingénue

who lost her freshness,

blousy, soft

debauched.

There is the peak of perfection,

the elegant stem

and delicate blush,

redolent

and on the cusp

of ripeness.

Before corruption

worms its way in.

The apple of his eye

he cannot resist.

There is low-hanging fruit

to sate appetite,

forbidden fruit

to arouse
his desire.

Teeth, tongue, lips

breaking through the glossy skin

then rich flesh, sinking in.

To the hard nub of seed,

containing all that’s needed

for life.

The esoteric knowledge

of DNA,

that may, or may not

breed true.

A moveable feast

of small fruit.

Because less is more.

And sure to leave

him wanting.

I almost always select small fruit. It's usually more flavorful, if less gaudy:  more nuanced, concentrated, intense. I was reminded of this while reading a recent New Yorker article about apple breeding (the SweeTango, in particular). Which gave me the first 2 lines. From there, the poem pretty much wrote itself.

I'm not sure what it is about apples, but this is my second "erotic" apple poem. (The first was Red Delicious.) Although I suppose the Garden of Eden might explain things. That is, if the corrupting knowledge was sex. (After all, it may have been the dawning of self-consciousness, self-awareness. Or perhaps the questioning and resentment of God's presumed omnipotence.)  ...Although, according to the article, the Biblical apple of Adam and Eve was more likely a pomegranate than an apple!