From the Nook of the Fig Tree
“From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked.” –Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
I see what you mean now, Sylvia.
From the nook of the fig tree,
I watch myself split
by my life-lines, branched paths on my hands
grow infant white buds
swell to scarlet and gold stars
into fruit as purple
as clotted blood.
Spring is just a shuffling of the tarot cards.
“A summer calm laid its soothing hand
over everything, like death.”
Countless people dangle
like figs from the branches:
A young up-and-coming writer
hangs green and impatient
for her words to be tasted,
Sun-soaked yellow splotches
dot an artist’s body
with remnants of painted labor,
A cosmopolitan woman speaks
honeyed tongues:
ficus carica, ich bin du.
In this balmy hollow I sit serene,
eye figs as they ripen
and wait,
and wait,
and wait.
I forgot no God can stop
the turn of the season.
Yellow leaves bury
a waste of fallen bodies,
a shallow grave filled
of fig wine, of blood
red vinegar.
But still I wait
for the final card to flip,
for the sweetest fig to plop,
into my outstretched palm.
“Maybe forgetfulness, like a kind of snow,
should numb and cover them.”
Between frostbitten branches, mocks
Which fig do you illuminate?
ach du, The Fool.
Anna Lynch is a sophomore at SUNY Geneseo studying creative writing and intercultural and critical studies through the English and communication majors. She is from Liverpool, New York, and enjoys exploring issues in social identity and injustice through both of her areas of study. She hopes to one day become a clinical social worker after collecting a handful of memories from travels abroad.