Fig Tree

 
I bite I bite I bite
And try to find the taste
of home.
But why do fruits play my tongue so differently
than how we played in the yard.
I bite and ooze
the juice
of figs between
my fingers sit
the tears I couldn’t shed.
I bite
I devour your garden
green spleen split by the doors
who show but don’t tell and I see
I see the tree you held onto like I hold my heart
in the bowl of milk and cereal while you shave your beard at the breakfast table as you
cut cut cut
your fig smile
Cut cut cut
dry figs
cut cut cut
figs figs figures of your hands
feed me a slice of potato too hot to keep in,
too sweet to keep out and I
puff puff puff your name
your smile
your smell and I’m so young and I don’t understand death and I
don’t don’t don’t and you
rot rot rot so beautifully;
the worms that eat at your flesh delight at the perfection you were,
the soil that holds you found it agreeable to
grow grow grow
trees
fig trees
and every fruit it bares holds a memory of you.
So I bite, I bite, I bite
To fill myself of your warmth
Praying praying praying
I grow a tree
Inside of me
As glorious as your fig tree.

***

(Featured image from Pexels)