Still Life
April 6 2015


Eye the colour,
which you know, just by looking.

Bounce it once or twice,
like a juggler, loosening up.

Squeeze it for ripeness,
but with a light touch
as if you're being watched.
And think of all the other hands
that may have judged,
picking over, putting back.

Then bring it to your nose
and take a long slow inhalation.
Past its time
the scent is sweet, complex
fermented.
Because miraculous yeast
are everywhere,
turning water to wine
like minor gods.
Raising bread
keeping cheese kept.

Not yet ripe
a hint of fruitiness.
And at its height
a mix of juice, pulp, rind,
sour, sweet, acidic.
Is there still life
after it's been picked?
Rearranging itself
like metamorphosis
beneath the deepening skin.

But supermarket produce
is washed, gassed, dyed.
In tiered rows
flattering light
overflowing bins,

a cornucopia
free of any flaws.

Strawberries
from California
you know will taste like straw.
Tomatoes hard as rock.

The 4^th in my fruit series. This one came from a quick scene in a terrific recent release: St. Vincent. Bill Murray is terrific as an old misanthropic heavy-drinking reprobate. He’s walking past a sidewalk fruit stand, tosses a few of something, squeezes something else, then surreptitiously pockets another piece and carries on, never breaking stride. Hardly a pivotal scene. But I thought of squeezing fruit, and how one negotiates the social niceties of pawing other people’s food while trying to get the best stuff for yourself. (Often the best of a bad lot!)

I think I've used this title a couple of times already. But I can't resist, since it works so well here. There's the still life of the tantalizing supermarket display. And there's the critical question in the middle of the poem, asking if there is still life in this tasteless fruit. My first provisional title was very straightforward: Picking Fruit. But I prefer the vagueness of this, leaving the reader uncertain about just what's going on until she gets to the 3^rd stanza

But supermarket produce/ is washed, gassed, dyed. I think I'm technically correct here: That they gas green tomatoes to ripen them; that they paint oranges orange. Or so I once was told.