I. She
I didn’t know this plum would be the taste
of going back to school, of my first kiss,
any more than I knew you would leave
when chimney smoke curled into autumn
and spider webs glistened across burdened fields,
your one-way footprints betrayed by morning dew,
crushing the long-grass lawn you forgot to mow
before the deluge.
I know you will try to entice me back
to your city, the place we fell into love
in a bed of strewn sheets, untethered.
Unrooted.
Where I cannot breath for buildings.
Where my feet can only slam onto pavements
and I try to find love in groundsel growing
between the cracks.
I dig out the plum tree,
vicious shovel stabs through tangled roots.
Its taste turned bitter.
II. He
There was a maggot in the plum.
The ground was full of worms.
Trees menaced the window of our bedroom.
No-sound filled my head with noise.
Copyright © Nicki Griffin 2013
