Poetry- "Looking Through a Half-Eaten Persimmon"

Looking Through a Half-Eaten Persimmon


Bluejays are eating fruit.
                                    My fruit.
They like to peck at the skin
until they reveal
     the rich
     red meat.
Here now I peek inside the hollow, where they’ve forgotten a seed.
Long and narrow, it’s the brown
     of old bruises and Valentine chocolates.
It’s still wet, with a caul. They don’t leave much
for the likes of you and me. The skin
is thin, barely a device for holding food, but look,
through the remains— a gift—
ignition.


11/18, 11/23/11