Food Poetry: Organic Fruit, by Diane Lockward

Published by Jonell Galloway + Wednesday, May 15, 2013 Permalink 0

: Christina Daub, Poetry Editor

Organic Fruit

I want to sing

a song worthy of

the avocado, renegade

fruit, strict individualist, pear

gone crazy. Praise to its skin

like an armadillo’s, the refusal

to adulate beauty. Schmoo-shaped

and always face forward, it is what it

is. Kudos to its courage, its inherent love

of democracy. Hosannas for its motley coat,

neither black, brown, nor green, but purple-hued,

like a bruise. Unlike the obstreperous coconut, the

avocado yields to the knife, surrenders its hide of leather,

blade sliding under the skin and stripping the fruit. Praise

to its nakedness posed before me, homely, yellow-green,

and slippery, bottom-heavy like a woman in a Renoir, her

flesh soft velvet. I cup the fruit in my palm, slice and hold,

slice and hold, down to the stone at the core, firm fist at the

center. Pale peridot crescents slip out, like slivers of moon.

Exquisite moment of ripeness! a dash of salt, the first bite

squishes between tongue and palate, eases down my

throat, oozes vitamins and oil. Could anything be more

delicious, more digestible? Plaudits to its versatility,

yummy in Cobb salad, saucy in guacamole, boldly

stuffed with crabmeat. My avocado dangles from

a tree, lifts its puckered face to the sun, pulls

all that light inside. Praise it for being small,

misshapen, and durable. Praise it for

the largeness of its heart.

Diane Lockward is the author of three poetry books, most recently, Temptation by Water Her previous books are What Feeds Us, which received the 2006 Quentin R. Howard Poetry Prize, and Eve’s Red Dress. Her poems have been included in such anthologies as Poetry Daily:360 Poems from the World’s Most Popular Poetry Website, Garrison Keillor’s, Good Poems for Hard Times, and The Poet’s Cookbook, edited by Grace Cavalieri Her poems have also been published in such journals as Harvard Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner as well as featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac. She lives in northern New Jersey and works as a poet-in-the-schools for both the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. You can visit her online at Diane Lockward.