Deliquescence

POEM | Ellen Bass

Deliquescence

Spring. I’d almost forgotten how the earth tilts her face, unsnaps her valise, and all the rooted greenery spills out, silks and chiffons flung everywhere. Even our old apricot, diseased and hacked, is not going gently. Janet calls me to see it studded with tight green balls— charms pinned to the ruins of a dying woman’s hair. His first summer, our son crawled here, plowing bare-kneed through the fallen fruit. Such a yield that August—luscious gold, a ferment of succulence. He bit whatever fleshy globe he chanced on, then tossed it over his shoulder. Yesterday Janet’s mother went down to the lobby of The Oaks in her bathing suit, two towels folded in the basket of her walker, looking for the swimming pool in her mind. Whatever decays, whatever sweetness is pecked from my stone brain, may I hold onto this one memory, broad and immaculate: the apricots swelling and dropping, splitting with their ripened weight.