b a r b a r a  f l e t c h e r: other poems


Bearing fruit

My mother told me
that if I ate apple seeds a tree
would sprout, grow in my belly, push up
through my throat, out of my mouth.

My fingers sink into a bowl
of peeled and pitted fruit:
berries, apples, plums,
the flesh chilled and wet against skin.
Pulp slips under my nails, gathers there in
raspberry-dark crescents, purple as blood.
I bring stained fingers to my lips, suck
juice and swallow tiny seeds, let them
settle in my stomach and lodge in the lining.

And I wait to bear fruit.