Plums
The pleasure of a plum
ripe for the plucking
ripe for the eating
and the moment
of biting into the soft
sweet flesh
in August
and a crop of plenty
jam today
and jam tomorrow
but the moist
fruit on the palate
in that moment
the precise reality
of it
as though I was
born to it
and the memory
of the sloping garden
the tree laden
and the shade beneath it
the child I was then
before I knew
what a woman
really was
but knew my tables
and could do my sums
and had no idea
but for the present
wiping away
the dripping juice with
the back of my hand
John Lyons