Broken Cherry

July 11 2017

The week of cherries,

when I find myself tempted

by metaphor.

Life as a bowl.

Luscious flesh, buffed a bold

lascivious red.

The small hard stone

at its centre.

I imagine tractor-trailers

belching diesel, nose-to-tail

hauling them all the way here from Washington State

in their precious window of ripeness.

So tender fruit

appears on supermarket shelves

in glut of fragrant sweetness.

And in another week

dumpsters will reek of rot,

the cloying smell

of fermentation.

But for now, all I can say

is they are cherry-flavoured, cherry-red

despite my poetic pretensions.

And succulent, firm, virginal

with alluringly curving stems;

tender fruit, as metaphor

for uncorrupted sex.

Perishable fruit, like fleeting youth,

so bitter-sweet

in its transience.