MULBERRY TREE  ROUGEMONT PARK
Terry Pritchard

I'd seen its winter shape, the grey ribbed bones
the drape of its leaded veins.
Now come August full fruit groans the branches
like a drinking willow.
Inside the dome the ground is a red mulch
with the sun glazed crimson and emerald green.

How to tell the taste?
Imagine the ripest mango
spread with a smear of aromatic physalis
reduced and packed in a long delicate raspberry,
a sweetness so full it falls a shred from corrupt.

I'm joined by a chinaman
who says no it's not so big at all.
He tells me something of forests
with broad shaded rivers
running red with fallen fruit.
We compete with something near to gluttony,
drawing a small crowd
who ask can you eat these then?
nowe say around mouthfuls they're deadly.

Then he tells me something of silk,
hints at the lisp of its slipping removal,
how a half hidden secret is more alluring.

Atrocious unspoken words
hang like blood between us in the plain air,
and we sense the tone of the words just fine.

So in a kind of submission
we show each other empty hands.
Wondering whose are the reddest,
his or mine?