--after Rilke

 

Every year the fig tree grows more

grandiose– its clown hands

flapping with contentment –

its fruits so pendulous, a cardinal

merely strokes one like a nipple.

Late summer unfolds—the tree’s

thirst: mine. As if we will always be

in this charged eros, this air.

I mash figs, turn them under

my spoon into ruby jam rife

with a million seeds— atoms vibrating

both complete and boundless. Because

the hurricane took down my oak, the fig’s

canopy overtakes the laurel, as Apollo did,

swarming his god hands so near the nymph

she broke her arms into untold branches—

closed and otherless. Was it desire?

Or was it the spell we were under—

an endless pursuit, grasping at what

was never ours?  What made us think

we couldn’t kill a world?