"Street Plums" by Ashira Morris

VOICEMAIL POEMS

I’m waiting for the tram, picking plums but really what I’m doing is looking, longingly higher up where most of the fruit is sitting ripe. A man approaches — bald but for a crown of white hair, lightweight vest, faded tattoos of an old sailor, two breasty mermaids with red lips. Do you want me to pull down the branch, he asks and I say yes please thank you and he does and suddenly I’m ensconced in the leaves, enveloped by the tree. I pick the plums one at a time, each a little ball of orange red fruit. That’s all for now, I say, and he starts to let go— then reconsiders. He pulls the branch back down takes matters into his own hands. His wide fingers grab fistfuls of fruit and drop them in my bag. Just as many fall to the ground and there are errant leaves and twigs, all component parts of the tree are now there, in my bag, in pieces. What a joy, to seize something entirety in pursuit of the one sweet part, the part that could be crushed by a closing palm. What a delight, to move with abandon, to ignore precision, to choose clear cutting over particular picking. Could my own hands claim what’s in front of them so confidently? Could they take so completely? I run into the street to catch the tram, whose yellow doors are already swinging open. ————————————– Ashira Morris called us from Sofia, Bulgaria. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems twitter.com/voicemailpoems instagram.com/voicemailpoems