The Plum
A teacher I loved
refused me a favor,
outraged I’d asked. His voice
had the squeal of a piglet,
wiggling before his slaughterer,
me, only an attendant daughter.
I looked down half-expecting to be
covered in animal blood
though it was an office,
not an abbatoir. Or a boudoir.
Never a drop
of sexuality between us.
But now a hint of an abandoned
courtesan in her open robe
breasts drooping, unshowered,
unpaid.
More appalled at my surprise
than at his meanness,
I went still,
still as the young girl awakened
inside the disheveled woman,
her girl’s surprise
like the briefest blizzard
freezing blossoms on the trees.
Her hurt,
a fruit
after sad agricultural news
of a season of low yield.
