All winter, the infant inside me dreams
of nectarines. She thirsts
for dimpled clefts, jewel-juice, sweet guzzled flesh.
With each craving, I think of my great-grandmother,
stranger, girl who crossed an ocean
to scour grates and polish brass,
and returned home in a red
dress and cloche hat, brimful
with remembered fruits —
not our blackberries or crabapples,
no: she spoke of blood
-oranges, mangos, blueberries, nectarines.
I stand between them now
on the cold tile of this dawn-dark kitchen,
pressing my teeth through skin to pulp and pit.
In a hollow husk, it waits: small, furred seed,
hardy cargo, clenched
between future and past.
All winter, it dreams.
From: http://one.jacarpress.com/issue-7/
Date: 2015
By: Doireann Ní Ghríofa (1981- )
