Summer Lessons II

 (19 years later, even when I don't write to you or about you, you are in what I write)

How to Eat a Plum

At first I don’t notice
That Z is avoiding
The plump indigo plums
Shiny from the rinsing
After we bought them
At the corner store this morning.
We have a bagful and eat a few –
They are smackingly good
(William Carlos Williams is in the house)
But then I see that
She isn’t taking any more
Of the juicy halves
I lay out on the plate.
Puzzled, I watch her for a while
Then remember:
In one, earlier, we found
A fat little slimy worm
Pushing its determined head
Through the wet bubbles
Of the darkened flesh.
I ask her if that’s why,
She hesitates but confirms
And looks a little shy.
I tell her that’s okay
And show her how to split a plum
To check for worms
But I already know it’s too late:
She’ll be wincing at plums
Forever perhaps
Even if she forgets about today.
 
The moment we see our first worm,
It stays. Predictable and snide,
It begins its insidious work on
All things lovely and innocent,
Like the worm that sickened
Blake’s rose and made her
Eternally indecent.
 
It’s the rose for some, for others the plum;

The worm finds us early, then sticks by our side.

Plum (without the worm), photographed by Z