“Fruit” by Iris A. Law

Fruit

After the funeral, there are so many baskets.
Spoiled apples slump in their cellophane slings.

Past-ripe peaches liquidize beneath my thumbs. 
I sit at the kitchen table with a board and a knife, 

trying to save the flesh that remains. There is still
so much waste. I want to gather it all in my hands,

to scoop each plum’s slurried insides, stuff it back
into its empty skin. I want to return you, as well,

to the evening before the dream began. How you sat
at this table cutting up platefuls of speckled pears. 

Their pale coats pinged as they spiraled into the bowl. 
You sliced off the fats of their cheeks, then gnawed

each remnant down to the seed. The air flushed green
with their scent. We held out our hands for more, more.