.
Alan
Shefsky
Selections
from "Plums/Poems"
The Ripe Red
.
Plum Poem Home
The Ripe Red
It is the ripe red
plum she prefers,
she tears into it with
the sharp fingernail
of her right thumb.
She loves even
the mess of it, the red-yellow
juice that washes
her hand and wrist,
falls to her dress.
She tears at the plum;
though peeled uneasily
she must peel it;
its small pieces give
and the plum is revealed.
Flesh and beneath--
she divides it further
into pieces she can
grab between finger
and thumb, she hides
the dark peelings
of skin in the folds of
a white cloth,
brings plum flesh
to her mouth, draws it in.
All is yellow-red
and tart, all is sweet
and wine-red, all is
flesh and tender
and plum and heart.
