Sweetness of Fruit

With navel, pores and sunny sheen

the fruit sits all in quiet,

with brightest hue, with tinge of green

(if once the eye would spy it).

The skin so marked, imperfect round,

the past inscribes the surface,

like all the verses that we’ve found

and hope they might preserve us.

Now peel the skin, but not too quick,

and find beneath what’s hidden;

the mottled layer, slipping slick.

Blocked sweetness lies forbidden.

The outer layers gone, wedges

open to the splitting eye.

We’re like the one who sits in hedges,

and hopes for something sweet to spy.

The teeth that burst the vessels thin

and grind, the juice to know it:

acidic sweetness there within,

if probing fingers show it.

And what is left when all’s consumed,

what faint savor on the tongue?

The adumbrating scraps of doom,

and the dying church bells rung.