Poetry Plum

This is the sweet fruit
 of the small orchard
you drove by again
on one of your oft
-mentioned trips

to California coast.
The deep hue dazzles
in bright sun and air
clean from Midwest
damp humidity. This

is what you insist
upon writing over
and over as you try
to open your life
wide to the possibility

that anything else
could exist in it.
You’re afraid to taste
the plums, though
you think you recall

how beautiful the flavor
can be of gold flesh
within the regal attire.
So instead, a fable:
a man picks a plum

in an orchard beside
the road outside Fresno.
The dryad living within
the slender trunk asks,
voice pouring like sap,

what the fruit tastes like.
I don’t know, he says,
astonished by this myth
he has a small role in.
I just like the color.