LATE FIGS

Abstract

6 7 R L A T E F I G S K A R L K I R C H W E Y Now it is time for mulch in its berm, for the shawl of burlap held shut with a pin, the picnic cooler’s helmet of Styrofoam, bandoliered in duct tape like a victim or a toppling Mother Courage in the garden. The autumn rains have swelled the last fruit hanging plump on its umbilical stem, coy amid the key and slot of shadows that continually fondle it, splayed open now by gravity at the bottom, going brown along the petalled edge of a jeweled crimson interior, weeping in a kind of ambrosial drench under the press of noon’s advantage with the burning smell of old sugar. Take one into your mouth: there is, after the down against your palate, the crush of seeds and a pulpiness, vertigo and a sense of trespass that anything so late and so sweet should live in you. Nor is it for long: the few remaining on a meandered dish, plucked from the frost and the blackening clench of leaves, are freckled by morning with a blue mold satiety will not touch. ...