Persimmons
I never took to the taste
a dry sweetness like that now of memory
but the exotic magic of having them
swelling to dusky orange on our front lawn
their lobes dull lamps among leather leaves
their name an instance of the arcane
and personal vocabulary of childhood
I was surprised to find shared
and even mis-spelt on a greengrocer’s board
from the bus in the tendentious city
can reinstate for me
a sky the thick matt blue of billiard chalk
and persimmons set square below the branch
their corners rounded smooth like those
of a radio of the period
broadcasting perhaps the warbler
whose task it is to sew the morning together
with bright decisive stitches of sweet song
fine accompaniment for sunlight
in the shape of fruit made flesh
Tony Beyer