by Kim Ports Parsons

Despite the name, there’s no fruit in May; it ripens, mellow
and rare, under July’s ragged umbrella. You need two cups, pectin,
sugar, and lemon. Stir the honey-guava, simmering yellow.
Strain away the poison of the pulp, seeds, and skin.

Taste the singular fruit, sweet and sour, thickened by pectin.
Consider its names—racoon berry, ground apple, wild mandrake.
Strain life’s poisons. It’s finished when you skim
a spoon and two distinct drops run together, sheeting from a plate.

Consider ways to name the pain. Heart’s mandrake?
Label and shelve. Some days, small spoonfuls are cathartic.
When a life drops, edges scrape like tectonic plates.
Mayapple roots grow underground in winter, their poison cytostatic.

(Meaning cells that won’t divide.) Shelve your losses. Taste spoonfuls
in remembrance. Wait for the sweetness, memory’s calf.
Mothers may teach daughters how to smooth edges, how to placate
pain, how to keen a song of naming, how loss ripens the self.

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Kim Ports Parsons grew up near Baltimore, earned degrees, taught, and worked in libraries. Now she lives next to Shenandoah National Park, gardens, walks, and writes. Her poems have been published in many journals; new pieces are forthcoming in december and Poetry Ireland Review. Her debut collection, The Mayapple Forest, will be published by Terrapin Books in 2022. She volunteers for Cultivating Voices LIVE Poetry. Visit her at KimPortsParsons.com.