Pome

From flowering gnarled trees they come, weighing down the branches, dropping with a soft sound onto the loamy ground. Falling and fallen. That’s a pome. Common as an apple. Or more rare. A quince 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. 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.