Published in Shot Glass Journal

Persimmons

They were still clinging in the snow:
baubles on a twig Christmas tree,
Jack-o'-lanterns without faces,
bright as street oranges of Seville.


You told me I should be prepared
for the 'kaki experience'. They would be
super-sweet, jam-like, drip off the spoon,
but I couldn't countenance that gloopy


texture and didn't understand the point
of seeking them preciously among their leaves
like griffins' eggs, except maybe to stop them
splattering to slippy wadges underfoot.


A treat foregone through prejudice, you thought.
But the sight was otherworldly: so many
suns dipping with a last golden flare
into the dark rotation of the earth.