Do not pick the greengages overripening
in the trees, they are the property of everyone
so must be eaten by none of us
You underestimate my desire to make jam
of rotten fruit, to fill jar after jar
with something too sweet
in blind compulsion to make use
and knit something free
Even the children will not crush it
into their cheeks. I should be picky
leave the cracked and the bruised but
every one that falls apart in my palm
that blossoms between my reckless toes
feels like a tiny death of something meant
for me. The ones that won’t survive
the night I pass again and again through
my anxious mouth until the acrid sugar
is heaved out, bent double at the side of my car
I panic at the loss, mourn a different kind
of death in my compost instead, where
each ruby stone will fill me nausea next year
and I’ll set the date in my calendar to do it again
Jodie Hannis is a queer poet and spoken word artist from the UK currently exploring archaeological writing as part of her PhD at the University of Leicester. She has performed across the country and has been published in The Blue Nib, New Luciad, and in the Dial-A-Poem project where she was awarded 3rd place.
Twitter: @orangejodie