Pome

Elizabeth Spires

From flowering gnarled（多节的，粗糙的） trees

they come, weighing down

the branches, dropping

with a soft sound onto

the loamy（肥沃的） ground. Falling

and fallen. That's a pome.

Common as an apple. Or

more rare. A quince（柑橘） or pear.

A knife paring away soft skin

exposes tart sweet flesh.

And deeper in, five seeds in a core

are there to make more pomes（梨果）.

Look how it fits in my hand.

What to do? What to do?

I could give it to you.

Or leave it on the table

with a note both true and untrue:

Ceci n'est pas un poème.

I could paint it as a still life,

a small window of light

in the top right corner

(only a dab of the whitest white),

a place to peer in and watch it

change and darken as pomes will do.

O I remember days. . . .

Climbing the branches of a tree

ripe and heavy with pomes.

Taking whatever I wanted.

There were always enough then.

Always enough.