in memory of Maria de los Angeles

Katrina K Guarascio

I

The tree was so plentiful every year.
A barrage of round ripened purple
overflowing thick branches and black leaves.
Fallen fruit littered the surrounding ground,
too heavy and grown to cling to limbs.

They were delicious.
Red center under smooth dark skin.
We gulped them down like air into formative lungs.
My brother and I.
We climbed those thick trunks
all the way to the top, despite her calls of concern.
She always worried too much.
Always wrapped us tight in undeserving wings.

II

This is to say,
you are not forgotten.

III

There is a childhood image I cherish
in the cobwebs of my mind when I think of her.
Shapeless in a house dress,
green with pink flowers, hair in curlers,
bare feet against yellow tile,
leaning over the kitchen sink,
so as not to spill the juices on herself.

Her hand, brittle as swallow’s feet
as she removed the pit from her mouth,
still sucking on the tender flesh
savoring the simple sweet.

IV

She gave me more than the shade of my eyes,
she gave me the sight to recognize the virtue in the veiled,
to cherish the imperfections that make us so perfectly human.

V

The last time I made it to California
the tree was cut to its bones.
Only the thick desecrated branches remained
barren, fruitless.
It could been seen from the window
in the living room, where her faded orange chair held her.

Instead of working her hands over preserves
sweeping up pits and picking up rot,
she sits inside translucent skin
so thin I can watch her heart beat through blue veins.

They bring her plums in the spring,
some of them don’t even have red in the middle.
Some of them are too hard for teeth.

VI

You smiled when you saw
I had eaten the plums that were in the icebox.
Shoving enough in my eight year old cheeks
to leave a trail of seeds from kitchen counter
to sliding glass door.

You rinsed off another and placed in my eager grasp,
never questioning my intention.
I remember the feel of your hands against mine.
Your touch like tender fruit,
so sweet
and so cold.

“Plums” is previously published in La Palabra: The Word is a Woman: Mothers and Daughters 2014.